The Coast Guard has new rules for the oil spill cleanup area. Let’s look at them.
The Captains of the Port for Morgan City, La., New Orleans, La., and Mobile, Ala. , under the authority of the Ports and Waterways Safety Act, has established a 20- meter safety zone surrounding all Deepwater Horizon booming operations and oil response efforts taking place in Southeast Louisiana.
Vessels must not come within 20 meters of booming operations, boom, or oil spill response operations under penalty of law.
The safety zone has been put in place to protect members of the response effort, the installation and maintenance of oil containment boom, the operation of response equipment and protection of the environment by limiting access to and through deployed protective boom.
In areas where vessels operators cannot avoid the 20-meter rule, they are required to be cautious of boom and boom operations by transiting at a safe speed and distance.
Violation of a safety zone can result in up to a $40,000 civil penalty. Willful violations may result in a class D felony.
Permission to enter any safety zone must be granted by the Coast Guard Captain of the Port of New Orleans by calling 504-846-5923.
Journalists are outraged with CNNs Anderson Cooper saying this is a way to hide “incompetence and failure.” Cooper sees it as a direct attack on first amendment rights.
I prefer to look at their shoddy wording of the order.
“The Captains of the Port for Morgan City, La., New Orleans, La., and Mobile, Ala., has established a 20- meter safety zone surrounding all Deepwater Horizon booming operations and oil response efforts taking place in Southeast Louisiana”
According to a literal reading of this, I might be barred from Middendorf’s if someone is cleaning up Lake Pontchartrain near Pontchatoula. If the order is extended to the other gulf states, how would picking up tarballs on the beach impact casinos? Would I need Coast Guard permission to visit a store that has tarballs within view?
The bottom line is that we are no longer as well off as the Addams Family. 
