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.
BP, as we have reported before on this blog, has already rejected water sampling, beach monitoring, and the use of the ECSO helicopters for marine observation as “duplicative of existing UAC (Unified Area Command) activities.” Chapmen reaffirmed those denials in his email.
For the helicopters to be reimbursable, the Sheriff’s Office would have to hand them over to the UAC and have them “fully integrated into the overall response plan approved by the UAC.” They would be then coordinated via Tyndall AFB—-not our County EOC.
The biggest expenditures that Chapman rejected were the booming contracts with DRC and Roads, Inc (Yes, the road contractor is now a boom vendor). As I posted on the blog back in May, DRC has a contract to furnish, install and maintain 18″ hard containment boom – 20,000 feet at $2.42 per foot per day for 30 days. This isn’t a purchase agreement the County rents it. DRC was paid $1,238,893.35 for the boom rental for the period 5/4-5/31.
Roads (under the name Shoreline Protective Services, LLC) has a similar contract, for a lesser rate, to provide the boom used in Little Sabine Bay.
Chapman wrote DEP: “Boom was contracted at rates above market levels and used a rental agreement versus the preferred method of purchasing.”
BP agreed to reimburse the county for $1.9 million for the initial boom rental from DRC and Roads, but said DEP and the County need to renegotiate the boom rental for July and going forward.
County officials have told me that they have contacted both DRC and Roads/Shoreline and are renegotiating those agreements.
—–
Note: BP appears to be controlling the decision-making of DEP and Escambia County. It appears DEP didn’t want to pay Escambia County out of the $50M it was given by BP to help local governments battle the oil disaster. How is DEP using the $50M?
Popularity: 6% [?]
Dawn: Panama dirty booms are cleaned here in Pensacola at the BP cleaning station in Bayou Chico. I think the responsible “Escambia theater” extends eastward to Apalachicola or thereabouts. 90% certain about this. Other comments?
This is an excellent thread with input from a variety of POVs. My own feeling is that BP disputes claims no matter what Escambia EOC tries to do. If the county had purchased the boom BP could dispute installation and tending costs, which are built into the present setup. There is no perfect way.
Booms are not very effective when deployed as they are now. Booms must be aligned at an angle to the prevailing current/waves and oil must be collected at the lee end using sumps or hand methods. That means a LOT more boom and a LOT more labor to tweak boom position and collect oil.
The difficulty is not only money to pay for everything but finding enough boom for sale. There is not enough boom in this entire country to boom the Gulf coast and inland waterways properly.
So we want the county to respond at the 11th hour with the cheapest, quickest, most bulletproof method to stop oil from getting into the bay and bayous? Well, IMO that’s impossible. To me, our local authorities are doing the best they can with limited resources, poor BP claim payments, less than friendly Incident Command relations and many problems that are not reported.
I agree that some individuals and catastrophe companies are cynical and try to maximize profits. We see this after hurricanes, too. And a few important departments do not address obvious problems. But overall EOC response is going as well as can be expected. Escambia is not a rich county.
According to Dr. Steven Picou, an Orange Beach sociologist who extensively studied the Exxon Valdez disaster, our communities risk becoming “toxic communities” — where friendships, families, support services and businesses start to break down and people turn on each other, then begin to withdraw into themselves. We should try to be considerate even when we cannot be silent.
Here’s what I want to know. Where is all the dirty boom being taken? The reason I ask is I live in Bay County (West Bay) and going home yesterday I found it odd that a large bulldozer was going up my dirt road with oiled boom (live off a creek that dumps into West Bay). Rick what is the policy for disposal of this oiled boom? Thanks in Panama City
Thomas A.
Bulldozers should not be burying any oil. If you actively see this call our monitoring team immediately, cards with numbers at the toll booth. Is there oil below the sand? yes. It is naturally buried as well as the things inadvertanly buried by people and vehicles.
That oil will have to be removed once well capped. We are not happy about it. When heavy oiling occurs you need mechanical equipment to pick it up quickly so it does not get buried. However, once buried we can take out now or we would lose all our sand. When capped we will have a system to dig up sand, clean it and bring it back. It will be a ongoing process but no reason to start cleaning until we know it wont get dirty.
Grover
Robert:
The server crashed this morning and we have to restore the blog using a backup from early yesterday. Please repost your comment.
I have always enjoyed reading your magazine, but I havent seen my comment I posted yesterday. Its starting to seem like your articles are one sided. Why is that?
Nothing short of damming the pass will save our inland waterways. No boom or skimmer will ever be enough. Every passive contaminate restraint will fail.
The fact is, sadly enough that it is much easier to clean the linear coastline than anywhere. Escambia was foolish in not building berms at the waterline which would have confined the oil making it easier to collect.
Furthermore, given the shear miles of inland coastline which dwarf beachline by 1000′s of miles. Add in the sensitive grass beds, spawning areas and not to mention property values along every bay and bayou Escambia County was wreckless in demanding no less than damming the pass.
There is absolutely no cost benifit model that would suggest the damage from closing that pass Vs the damage the oil WILL and I mean WILL DO will ever be in favor of leaving our waters exposed.
We should be demanding it. We should be telling the Coast Guard, Unified Command and BP we must protect ourselves and commit.
We must do this before it is too late. We are pushing 200 million gallons of oil in the gulf. Pour a quart of oil in a tub and then multiply that by 800,000,000. It’s coming, not all of it but just a fraction of that amount will reck devistation this area at a level it has never known.
They are right…18″ boom is worthless for there current use…but they do make 36″ and 42″ boom for open water…that is what should be used…As I have said previously, it’s not how much boom you buy it’s more important that you buy the right kind…and the county/city is buying the wrong kind…It’s ridiculous!
Grover,
Why are bulldozers using our sand to cover standing pockets of water with oil debris on Pensacola Beach at Fort Pickens Gate?
Tom
So last month we were doing our usual boat trip over to Range Point, the point of land points north from Portofino. The kids love the little creek running from the lakes back in the dunes. The booms were out ‘protecting’ this priceless estuary. A work boat came up to adjust the boom and we walked over and spoke with what appeared to be the supervisor. I forget which company he said that he worked for but he said that the County had contracted them to place and maintain the booms. He and his crew were not from here…Carolinas?…I don’t really remember.
We asked him about the booms. He laughed. He called them “political booms” placed to make everyone feel like something is being done, “waste of money”. He said he has been in the oil business for over 30 years and that the booms really don’t do much. He said that wave action over one foot would compromise the booms and that oil would go under the skirt with even a little current. His crew finished adding more boom to the mouth of the estuary, loaded up and made way to the east to add more boom to other set ups. More boom = more $$$.
I find it interesting that BP has a problem with Escambia county boom when they allow Alabama to spend $4.5 million on a pipe boom system that broke.
Lets face it on April 30 we were told landfall immenant. Boom was the only protection we could get and we did not have time to put out an RFP. If BP could have help us obtain protection cheaper then they should have done it. This is the same company that has done nothing to protect local areas and then complain later about expenses, especially in states that do not allow drilling. In states that allow drilling, expenses are not challenged.
In the end, BP was provided a less expensive alternative to provide protection with inland belt skimmers. They have chosen not to accept that responsibility either.
Listen, I wish every day that BP would accept their responsiblity and do the right thing to protect us and local government could go back to local issues. for over 3 weeks, BP has had a variety of vendors to approve for skimmers. They do not to want select a skimmer but force the county to do so and then say the county paid too much.
The areas that are boomed are done so because BP fail to protect areas such as Lafytte Cove and Little Sabine. Mr. Newsome and I have differences on how he chose to move forward but we do not disagree on the need to provide protection when BP failed. (Mr. Newsome chose to have absorbent boom deployed and I favored an enhanced protection system at the mouth of Sabine.)
Citizens want to know why Escambia County is not booming its entire shoreline like Gulf Breeze. That would be excessive to me on a cost-benefit system. Still the final responsibility is BP, they created this. I don’t care how they do it or how expensive just that they do it. When they refuse to accept that responsibility, The county is forced to deal with some type of protection. In May, I believed in the boom. Now I know we need skimmers. However, if skimmers not there (BP choice), we have to have the boom.
BP’s mantra is we dont care where it makes landfall, we will clean it then, we dont have to worry about the damage it does because we do not live there.
Grover
The county will always be the county. They are probably trying to get more money than really owed and BP caught them. LOL
[...] BP won’t reimburse some County expenses. Rick’s Blog is reporting that BP has told Florida DEP Secretary Michael Sole that it won’t reimburse some of Escambia County’s expenses, including the deployment of additional boom. BP also called other County efforts such as water sampling and helicopter fly-overs “duplicative.” [...]
As far as these plastic booms go, yes it is a complete wast of money. We need to spend BP money wisely, as there are limits, believe that if you will. BP money is not unlimited and there is a breaking point.
I am fairly confident that if the local municipalities had to pay for these plastic booms, did the reach in there effectiveness, did a cost analysis, THERE WOULD BE NO BOOMS SHUTTING DOWN OUR WATER WAYS.
We are hurting ourselves, for a feel good exercise because these plastic orange booms make use feel good, and thats all they are doing.
We are making our water ways completely unusable. BOOMS DO NOT WORK WHERE THEY ARE USED TO BLOCK CURRENTS, THEY BLOCK NOTHING.
I would be in favor (maybe) if they got 10% of the oil, they do not even do that.
It is time that we help ourselves and we get a real plan to protect our water ways.
Amazing that during a crisis Roads Inc can still find a way to get into the pockets of our county. DEP not bong a good player, hard to believe. BP not doing he right thing even harder to believe. Don’t they know Papantonio lives here.