from The Defuniak Herald
OIL SPILL IMPACT NEWS DOMINATES TDC MEETING
Jun 18th, 2010 | 0
By LEAH STRATMANN
In one way or another most of the discussion at the monthly meeting of the South Walton Tourist Development Council (TDC) centered on the oil spill, even as it was reported that Southwest Airlines is bringing in full loads of tourists with every flight. “The loads are so solid they are running out of rental cars and parking spaces,” reported executive director Dawn Moliterno.
Cliff Knauer of Preble-Rish was on hand to report on the action taken thus far by the county to protect the coastal dune lakes. “On May 3 I was called to a meeting by the Walton County sheriff who told me I had three days to implement a plan to protect the lakes,” he said. “We took into account availability of material to close up all the lakes very quickly to protect them. We decided concrete barriers would work best and they were readily available. This plan was presented to the sheriff and Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). We were moving forward with that plan without permits to get down there and protect the turtles, shorebirds and our lakes,” he said.
“On May 10 we started hauling the traffic barriers to the lakes. We did that for two or three days and then we were told we would have more time to plan. We decided to take the concrete barriers off the beach and the DEP said they wanted beach compatible sand on the beach rather than the barriers.
“On June 3 we got the permits to put the first plug in at the dune line. We had approval to do some contouring of the outfall so the oil will not come into the outfall itself and then putting the sand into the outfall. On June 4 we flew all the lakes and photographed it so we knew where the outfalls were and we hauled sand to Western Lake, which is very open to the gulf and very vulnerable. We worked two days on Western Lake. What I can report to you today is everything will be finished by June 11 with the exception of monitoring. If the lakes start to get too high, we will manually open them so the berms will not be breached and 10,000 cubic yards of sand will have been hauled to the beach to complete this project,” Knaur said.
“We are using very very good sand. This is probably the best pit I have worked out of. When it dries out it is as white or whiter than the natural sand. When this catastrophe is over we will remove the sand and use it to reinforce the dunes around the lake,” he concluded.
Assisting Preble-Rish with this project was MRD Coastal Engineering. Mike Dubrowski of MRD said, “This plan addresses the issue of storm events as well as the oil. This design will provide the same level of protection to the beach.”
Moliterno noted the TDC has been an active partner in the project to protect the coastal dune lakes from the beginning. “Because the dune lakes are so rare, the media has had a lot of interest in how we protect them. The dollars that cover this plan come out of the county’s $1.5 million allocated reserve dollars,” she said.
Howard Marlowe of Marlow and Company, the Washington, D.C. based lobbyists retained by the TDC since 2002, were on hand to bring the council up to date on what is happening with the federal government. “We feel our own degree of helplessness regarding the oil situation. We want to try and start to take some action,” Marlowe said.
The lobbyists said Congress is asking for legislation to be passed before the July 4 recess that will deal with the cleanup issues. The estimated cost of cleaning up is $3.9 billion dollars. “They are calling this Katrina 2 and I’m afraid most of the money may be earmarked for Louisiana so we want to make sure the profile of this area is raised as high as possible in Washington,” Marlowe said.
One of the possible stumbling blocks is the Oil Liability Act, which was passed after the Exxon Valdez disaster and caps the liability for oil rig explosions at $75 million.
Moliterno was appointed to the governor’s task force to address the oil issues. “I commend the governor for doing this and making sure as a state we get organized and know how to deal with this,” she said. “We were reminded at the task force meeting not to ignore the fact that we are in hurricane season now. On top of the oil, we have to do what we normally do to prepare for that.”
It was noted that in the event of a storm, FEMA will be responsible for returning things to the baseline before the storm, but if the government acts to address the oil spill with federal dollars, it negates the liability of the oil company.
Council member Don McQuade asked, “To date our impact from the oil has been economic. If a storm came tomorrow and brought oil with it, does that mean FEMA is responsible?” The answer is yes.
Some of the funds allocated by the county’s reserve funds will conduct an economic impact study as it relates to the oil spill.
“Loud and clear we heard from BP that they want to do the right thing. They have paid $6.7 million in claims so far and there are about 10,000 other claims to be processed. The governor has asked for $5 million to be used for research to find out the environmental impact,” Moliterno said.
Of the $25 million BP has already paid to the state of Florida, the local TDC was awarded $1.3 million to be used exclusively on advertising. The funds must all be expended by mid-July and can be used only for advertising. It was reported monies were awarded based on bed tax collections.
Leah Stratmann may be reached via leahwrites@gmail.com
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