Your Community

Your assignment: Gulf Coast oil spill

by Your Voice Posted: April 29, 2010 3:17 PM Last Updated: April 29, 2010 3:41 PM

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Oil, bottom right, is seen approaching the Louisiana Coast, top left. (Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)

A massive and growing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is "a spill of national significance," U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said Thursday.

The Deepwater Horizon, the offshore oil rig that exploded last week, triggering the spill, was leased by British oil giant BP.

Napolitano's announcement comes just hours after BP officials acknowledged the spill might be five times larger than originally believed and underscores the government's concern that BP is ill-equipped to contain the spill.

Early estimates said 1,000 barrels a day were leaking from the drilling site off the coast of Louisiana, but the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has revised that to 5,000 barrels, or 795,000 litres, a day.

As the oil moves toward the coast, concern has been growing about the effect on coastal ecosystems and communities.

In Gulfport, Miss., where white sand beaches are a tourist playground and dolphins, whales and manatees are frequent visitors to Mississippi Sound, residents are braced for the worst.

Your assignment: Are you or someone you know in a community that could be affected by the spill? Tell us your story.

We're looking for reports, photos and video from the Gulf Coast. Here's how you can share your experience with CBC News.

Report:

Tell us your story. Take a moment to write down your personal experiences, focus on how you and your community are being affected by the spill. Document the who, what, where, when and how. What are your concerns about the spill? What precautions are you taking? What help, if any, have you been offered by local authorities? We're looking for entries between 300 and 500 words. Be clear and be concise. You can email your report to yournews@cbc.ca

Photos:

An image can certainly be worth a thousand words. Capturing a news event or something happening in your community can be as easy as point and shoot. We're looking for photos that illustrate the impact of the spill on your community. Have a look at these shots from the Icelandic volcano eruption for a sense of what makes a good picture. You can upload images here, add them to our Flickr group or email them to yournews@cbc.ca.

Video:

A great way to tell your story is through video. Keep length to a maximum of two minutes. CBC video producer Doug Arrowsmith offers the following advice: "A good video follows a theme and a story. It is usually character driven, someone doing something for a reason. The story also has a beginning, middle and end." Upload your video here.