7. GULF COAST:
Texas spill program sets pace, example for its neighbors
Published:
As deepwater drilling resumes in the Gulf of Mexico a year after the BP PLC oil spill, questions are being asked about whether the Gulf Coast states are prepared to handle another spill.
Environmentalists say the four states hit hardest by the spill -- Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida -- have failed to adequately address the lack of coordination, money and communication that plagued their responses to last year's disaster.
"I think this is an opportunity to showcase significant leadership in protecting the public's interest and economic interests," said Jill Mastrototaro, senior regional representative of Sierra Club's Delta chapter in Louisiana. "They certainly haven't risen to the challenge and failed to do that in the recovery process as we move forward."
State officials disagree. Alabama, for example, has formed at least two panels related to the spill in response to recommendations by the state's Coastal Recovery Commission. And Louisiana points to an spill response plan that establishes an office and sets up a fund to coordinate operations and state agencies. The other Gulf states respond to spills through their departments of the environment and emergency management.
But the state most proud of its spill readiness is Texas, which -- aside from tar balls washing up on the shorelines of Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula -- was largely unscathed by the BP spill. Texas has 55 employees dedicated to spill response.
"There's not an equivalent program like mine," boasts Greg Pollock, deputy commissioner of the Texas Oil Spill Prevention and Response Program.
As neighboring states struggled to contain oil last year, Texas loaned them equipment and expertise. Pollock's department provided 1,000 feet of fire boom for containing floating oil and two wildlife-rehabilitation trailers -- one being a "rolling Laundromat for birds" and the other a "rolling hotel" for cleansed birds, he said.
As for Galveston Bay's tar balls, the state and BP cleaned them up in a matter of days.
"Generally speaking, I think the state of Texas does a really good job training and coordinating," said Bob Stokes, president of the nonprofit Galveston Bay Foundation. "We have such heavy industry here in Galveston Bay that we have a lot of support for oil-spill response."
Louisiana
There is less support and coordination in Louisiana, Texas' Pollock said, the state where nearly 925,000 barrels of oil has been collected as of April 3, BP said.
While Louisiana's 215-page spill response plan stipulates that an on-scene coordinator should be on site for all spills to ensure agencies aren't duplicating their duties, last year's disaster showed parish presidents and county officials were unfamiliar with the respective roles of local, state and federal responders, Pollock said.
Louisiana's multimillion-dollar sand berm project received plenty of media play, but at the time of the spill, the state's efforts were not touted publicly, said Mastrototaro, who heads the Sierra Club's Beyond Oil campaign.
"I think that reflects a failure on our state's part to have a response office that protects public interest and worker safety interests offshore," she said.
Louisiana officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Mastrototaro said there were steps the state could be taking now but isn't. Instead, a fierce redistricting battle has taken up most of state leaders' time.
"They could be initiating training programs, allowing the fishing community to become first responders," she said. "It's not a question of if. It's a question of when. We need to be as prepared as we can, as a state and a country. We need to respond immediately."
Florida
Environmentalists are also expressing frustration with Florida's spill preparation.
BP's oil first hit Florida beaches last June 3, and since then, more than 42,000 barrels of liquid oil product has been collected.
"We were caught with our pants down," said Chasidy Fisher Hobbs of the nonprofit Emerald Coastkeeper. "We're the only Gulf state that doesn't have offshore drilling, so we had the attitude that we didn't have to worry about it and prepare for it."
Responders from the Florida Division of Emergency Management began monitoring the oil spill last April 21, a day after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded to start the spill, and helped set up incident command centers.
But response was inhibited, Hobbs said. It took counties up to three weeks to get local action plans approved by incident command. Counties and towns expressed a feeling of abandonment by the state.
In a response to an inquiry about the state's efforts, Florida Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Kristin Lock pointed to a report released last month by the emergency management division.
The report recommends updating contingency plans, making a few organizational changes in state agencies, expanding response training and developing best practices for sampling analysis.
Environmental groups say they have yet to see recommendations come to fruition and hope any plans would involve creating a regional citizens advisory council, as was recommended by President Obama's oil spill commission.
"The state and the county turned their back on public health with regard to the spill," said Mike Sturdivant, chairman of the Emerald Coast chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, a group whose mission is to protect the oceans and beaches.
Enid Sisskin, a professor at the University of West Florida and opponent of offshore drilling, said she does not expect much to change.
"We have a state government talking about rigs again, and they've forgotten," Sisskin said. "The short-term memory these people have -- they forgot very quickly what it did last summer in the push right now for tourism dollars."
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) announced last week that he had secured $30 million from BP to boost marketing efforts in northwest Florida.
"We're all focused on jobs," Scott said in a speech yesterday while touring the areas in Florida hit by the spill. "This is what our state needs. Fortunately the unemployment rate is coming down, but we still have a million people without a job, and we're going to make sure that changes. Part of it is to get everybody in the country to come back here and understand that we have pristine beaches, we have great fishing, and our fish tastes great."
Mississippi
In Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour (R) created a 34-member task force to evaluate the spill, which released a draft report in January. The draft builds on the Mississippi Coastal Improvement Program, which was part of the state's recovery plan for Hurricane Katrina.
The plan's goals: the reconstruction of the state's barrier-island system to its size before 1968's devastating Hurricane Camille and buyouts of houses that have repeatedly been lost or damaged in storms.
Nearly 197,000 barrels of liquid oil product have been collected off Mississippi's shores, but at the time of the spill, the state's first response was to deny there was any potential harm.
"The truth is," Barbour said on Fox News last June, "we have had virtually no oil. ... We have had a few tar balls but we have had tar balls every year, as a natural product of the Gulf of Mexico."
Louie Miller, the Mississippi director for the Sierra Club, called the response "botched from start to finish."
"There was just a comedy of errors associated with this whole so-called response effort, starting from 'Oil, what oil?' And they stayed on message for about six or eight weeks until the oil finally landed," Miller said.
As in Florida, not much has changed in Mississippi since the draft was released, observers say.
"Plans have to be implemented. Putting together a plan is a good start. Implementing it is very important," said LaDon Swann, director of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, an organization of nine universities and laboratories.
Mississippi, like all of the Gulf states, is still struggling to market its seafood as safe for consumption. Doing that will be the "linchpin" to recovery, Swann said.
Alabama
Concerns about seafood safety spurred Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) to form the Alabama Seafood Marketing Commission, one of two panels formed out of recommendations from a December report by the state's Coastal Recovery Commission. The governor has also announced a panel to evaluate coastal insurance.
Gulf experts praise the response to the oil spill in Alabama, where more than 228,000 barrels of liquid oil product have been recovered from the state's coast.
"I think the smart thing is they're focusing on the future," said Russ Lea, vice president for research at the University of Alabama.
Former Gov. Bob Riley (R) created the Coastal Recovery Commission last year by executive order. Part of the money Alabama received from BP was put toward the commission, which has morphed into a nonprofit, the Coastal Alabama Leadership Council.
"It's been very encouraging how quickly the new administration has moved on this," said Ben Brown, spokesperson for the commission.
The Gulf spill taught state officials that there needs to be coordination between the state and local levels, said Cooper Shattuck, Bentley's legal adviser. The report encourages a regional response to the spill and suggests ways to build up coastal Alabama's economy.
"I think what they have pointed out is there are certain weaknesses in the Gulf Coast economy -- things that could perhaps be more diversified, more or better equipped to handle a challenge like a huge hit to tourism," Shattuck said. "If you don't have a stable, solid economy, you're going to have a greater impact on you than otherwise."
Texas
No Gulf state has a spill program to match the Texas effort.
The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and some local spills spurred the creation of the Texas program in 1991.
"Most pieces of legislation, there's an implementation period. In Texas, it's typically 90 days," said Pollock, the program coordinator who was part of the team that wrote the original program. "With the stroke of a pen we were in the oil spill business with no staff, no offices, no equipment. Bingo, we were supposed to respond to oil spills."
The program has evolved after a few difficult first years when "we really were flying by the seat of our pants," Pollock said.
The program under the Texas General Land Office receives money through a 1.3-cents-per-barrel fee for crude oil that is offloaded in Texas ports. The money helps buy expensive equipment; according to Pollock, 500 feet of fire boom costs $750,000.
The fund, though, tends to always contain between $10 million and $20 million, where it is capped.
Pollock said he works closely with the U.S. Coast Guard, but state oil spill workers often beat the Coast Guard and spill contractors to the scene of spills. There are five state field offices, and somebody is always on call, Pollock said. State employees go through a weeklong oil spill school, are HAZWOPER-trained and are certified for all equipment.
The Texas oil spill program celebrated its 20th anniversary on March 28. Texas General Land Office spokesman Jim Suydam said other Gulf states could learn from Texas.
"The thing is, we have pre-plans. If there's a spill in an area, our guys don't have to make it up as they go along," Suydam said. "I think there's value in the model that Texas has. It's almost like not having a firehouse if you don't have a program in place like this. There's going to be spills and you have to be prepared."
