Oil found beneath the surface along Florida's Gulf Islands National Seashore.
In another chapter in the continuing absurdity of the BP Gulf Coast Deepwater Horizon oil spill, beachgoers visiting Florida's Gulf Islands National Seashore are not allowed to dig more than six inches below the sandy surface of its beaches. Granted, it's an archeological issue related to state and national parks - digging below the prescribed six inches could disturb cultural sites protected by the National Historic Preservation Act. But lo and behold, if one happens to be making a sand castle and accidentally digs below that level, one finds - you guessed it! - oil-saturated sand and the like.
Remember that oil that was declared 75 percent gone a while back? Yeah, well, here's some of it. So forget about making a sand castle, kids, those are off limits, at least if you are conspiring to dig deeper than six inches under the surface of Gulf Islands National Seashore beaches.
See the sad truth here in this report from Pensacola's WEAR TV.com complete with low-level security goons on ATVs, bullying reporter Dan Thomas.
If deep water drilling regulations were enforced in the same manner as these trivial beach digging rules, we'd be worrying about issues other than the ecological, economic, and environmental impact of the Gulf oil spill in the first place.