The winds and waves are pushing the oil further west, washing tarballs ashore on Texas beaches, which leaves only Mexico and Cuba to complete the set of people with Gulf beaches.

The beach clean-up is garbage. Every time the tide comes in the oil under the sand rises and stains the beach anew. There are reports that in some places contractors are just moving clean sand over the top of the dirty to hide the problem. That, of course, just increases the total amount of sand that is contaminated.

The Pensacola News Journal carries a report on part of the problem: Oil buried in sand hidden from easy cleanup.

BP is still stalling paying for the clean-up. Rick Outzen writes about one of their gimmicks: BP says county boom contracts excessive

BP Incident Commander Bryant Chapman sent Florida DEP Secretary Mike Sole an email on June 30 regarding a request for reimbursement of $3.5 million of the operational costs incurred by Escambia County that were “above and beyond the costs covered by the $50 million granted to the state of Florida.” Chapman gave Sole a list of expenditures that BP would not reimburse.
…

Chapman wrote DEP: “Boom was contracted at rates above market levels and used a rental agreement versus the preferred method of purchasing.”

Yes, purchasing boom is probably cheaper than leasing it, but the contracts also cover installation and maintenance. Local counties don’t have the skills, equipment, or manpower needed for oil booms, nor would a county purchasing department know what the market price of booms was. Local counties in Florida, which has no off-shore oil wells, don’t have the experience to deal with the problem, so they have to hire outside companies. If BP didn’t want to pay for it, they should not have screwed up and had the well blow out. BP caused the problem, and they are responsible for the costs of their pollution.

Germany [Die Mannschaft] 0-0 Spain [La Furia Roja] at the end of the first half.

Not exactly the sort of high scoring game that has characterized Die Mannschaft, but they tend to wake up for the second half. La Roja definitely has more elegant ball handling, but that isn’t getting anything netted.

More later.

Final: Germany 0-1 Spain

Puyol of Spain headed one past Germany’s goalie, Neuer, off a corner kick and La Roja face the Oranje in the Final.

Cambrai – Reims

Distance: 153.5 kilometers.

Team managers and senior riders obviously decided that today would be a time to take it easy after surviving the cobblestones because there were no changes in much of anything including jerseys, although from the looks of pictures from yesterday, a number of people are wearing new helmets, and no few bandages.

1 Fabian Cancellara (Sui-SAX-013) [Yellow]
2 Geraint Thomas (GBr-SKY-039) [White]
3 Cadel Evans (Aus-BMC-121)
4 Ryder Hesjedal (Can-GRM-054)
5 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra-QST-131)
6 Andy Schleck (Lux-SAX-011)
7 Thor Hushovd (Nor-CTT-095) [Green – 80 points]
8 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz-AST-009)
9 Alberto Contador (Esp-AST-001)
10 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel-SIL-101)
11 Nicolas Roche (Irl-ALM-081)
12 Johan Van Summeren (Bel-GRM-058)
13 Denis Menchov (Rus-RAB-191)
14 Bradley Wiggins (GBr-SKY-031)
15 David Millar (GBr-GRM-057)
16 Roman Kreuziger (Cze-LIQ-044)
17 Luis-Leon Sanchez (Esp-GCE-161)
18 Lance Armstrong (USA-RSH-021)
19 Thomas Lövkvist (Swe-SKY-037)
20 Jose Joaquin Rojas (Esp-GCE-169)

83 Jérôme Pineau (Fra-QST-135) [Polka Dot – 13 points]
156 Dimitri Champion (Fra-ALM-083) [Red numbers]
Saxo Bank has the yellow numbers

So far the Tour has traveled 799.9 kilometers [497.0 miles] at an average speed of 43.3 kph [26.9 mph]. Only 35 minutes, 32 seconds separate the first rider to the last, and Rojas is only 2 minutes, 35 seconds behind Cancellara.

July 7^th, 2005, London

BBC In Depth and the Wikipedia articles on the bombing.