BP Takes Over Alabama Point?

Talk about your strange encounters….today my brother and I walked out on Alabama Point. The huge parking lot was chained off and fenced off for BP equipment and workers. We went around it, no problem.

We noticed the beach had been cleaned…YEAH!!!…and we noticed tar balls continuing to wash up…but smallish ones. There were active ghost crab burrows, which is a good sign but we witnessed one crab that was pretty messed up, perhaps neurologically….very spastic behavior and obviously not right. But overall the beach looked better than we expected.

The water was dark in spots and fish were constantly breaking the surface, which is a little different. Don’t know if the low oxygen levels were creating the problem. And yes…a few people were swimming. Scary.

After walking around the point we saw a boardwalk leading back to the road. There was no ‘do not enter’ sign so we decided to use the boardwalk to walk back to the access road.

Upon arriving at the end of the quarter-mile long boardwalk a guard approached us and said we couldn’t be in the parking lot. We tried to explain there was no sign or directions from the other end of the long boardwalk. He told us BP had taken over and this was their territory but they couldn’t walk to the end of the boardwalk and place a sign stating the boardwalk was closed to the public because they weren’t allowed to go out there unless they were cleaning the beach.

I don’t think he every understood that we were just trying to get off the beach, without walking through the dunes. We were not the angry protestors he was waiting for who want to destroy BP’s equipment (that’s what he said). We just wanted to get back to our vehicle.

Might I suggest that SOMEbody post a DO NOT ENTER sign on boardwalks they don’t want ‘civilians’–again, his words–on? Please?? And please stop giving BP territory before they take over the world.