http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGX7krQYI_4&feature=player_embedded
AssociatedPress — June 09, 2010 — A rare and different perspective at the oil spill from beneath the surface. The AP’s Rich Matthews got an exclusive look at the spill by joining a dive team who explored how the oil is impacting the Gulf of Mexico. (June 9)
Captains and mates at Key West’s Charterboat Row are noting a significant decline in the number of walk-in customers based on the perception that there is oil in Keys waters.
They just opened this past week, but already, the two Keys locations where business owners can file claims for losses due to the BP oil spill are drawing traffic.
The Marathon office opened on Wednesday, and by Thursday, more than two dozen people had passed through the doors. The Key West office opened Friday.
Local BP spokesman Andrew Van Chau described all the claimants as in tourism-related businesses, including charter fishing, restaurants and attractions. They’re reporting either cancellations or that negative publicity has caused visitors to stay away.
Steve Kessler owns the two-room Atlantis Guesthouse on Atlantic Boulevard across from the White Street Pier. He filed a claim against BP two weeks ago.
“I’ve had three cancellations already from people concerned about the oil,” he said. “One was a two-week cancellation. People are just worried. They’re making reservations at other places.”
Overall, around 90 claims for financial reparations from BP have been filed so far in the Keys. That’s in addition to federal lawsuits filed claiming similar losses. Among those who’ve sued are the firm that operates the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Attraction in Key West, and Key West Tiki Charters.
At Key West’s Charterboat Row, the captains are feeling the pinch since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank on April 22, causing millions of gallons of oil to spew into the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven men died in the explosion.
Chad Will, a mate on the Conch Too charter boat, says walk-in business is down. “It’s just like a hurricane,” he said. “People don’t come whether it’s here or not.
About half of the Keys claims are from Key West, Van Chau said. The other half is split between the Middle and Upper Keys.
He said that overall in Florida, about 4,000 claims that have been submitted and more than $3 million has been paid out.
In all Gulf states affected by the spill, roughly 30,000 claims have been submitted and about $40 million paid out, BP says.
Van Chau explained the claims process: “They’ll talk to a claims agent and that person will take basic information. As they complete that, they’ll be issued a claims number and they may ask the person to fax the documentation. If there are several documents that need to be provided, they encourage the claimant to come to the office.”
For example, BP will likely ask for sales receipts for the same time period from previous years to compare to this year’s sales numbers.
“Once they’ve got a claims number, as they have additional claims to make, they submit that information. We will pay every legitimate claim,” Van Chau said.
Gov. Charlie Crist has asked BP for $50 million, on top of an already paid $25 million, to help fund state cleanup efforts.
BP has pledged another $25 million to launch advertising campaigns to continue luring tourists to Florida. Crist appointed Monroe County Commissioner Mario Di Gennaro as the first member of his Gulf Oil Spill Recovery Task Force.
Staff writer Ryan McCarthy contributed to this report.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/us/08dam.html
MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, Ala. — James Hinton looked over a barge jutting into the mouth of a 6,000-acre estuary last weekend and said, “If we can make this work, if the oil don’t get in here, 1,275 miles of bay and river coastline will be protected.”
A day later, Mr. Hinton said: “I could go to jail for going against unified command. Now, I don’t mind going to jail, I just need to make sure it’s for doing the right thing.”
In a month in which Gulf Coast officials have railed about not being able to protect their shorelines from oil and not getting support from BP or the unified command structure set up to handle the cleanup efforts, Mr. Hinton, a volunteer fire chief in Magnolia Springs, a small town of fewer than 1,000, has emerged as a man with a plan.
“What he’s doing is really admirable,” said Bethany Kraft, executive director of the Alabama Coastal Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group. “He’s taking things into his own hands instead of waiting for other people to do something about it.”
Mr. Hinton went into action the first week of May, calling a town meeting to discuss ideas for protecting Weeks Bay, an estuary off Mobile Bay that supports 19 federally protected species, including bald eagles and wood storks. The residents came up with a solution that is unique on the gulf, said Malissa Valdes, a spokeswoman for the unified command, which approves all responses in federally governed waters.
From the start, the townspeople were unsatisfied with the unified command’s plan for Weeks Bay — a strand of floating surface barriers known as boom stretched across the bay’s mouth. Because of tidal currents, any oil on top of the water could splash over the boom, then into the bay and up the Fish and Magnolia Rivers into nurseries for area wildlife. A plan to string boom across Mobile Bay failed when water shredded the barrier.
Mr. Hinton’s solution was simple: run a wall of barges across the mouth of Weeks Bay to block the current, then run five layers of boom behind it — two to block the oil, and three strands of absorbent boom to soak up any oil that got through the containment layers.
The town bought the boom right away, before an increase in demand nearly quadrupled the price. Money for the project came from the state, which received $25 million from BP for emergency response efforts.
“We’re not biologists or engineers or scientists,” Mr. Hinton said. “We took common sense and what we knew about the water from living here. I’m pretty proud of our little plan.”
Between rain showers on Sunday, two dozen volunteer firefighters and teenage explorers laid out the layers of boom, while a tugboat and a crane moved nine barges into place, anchored by 40-foot spikes, with a closeable 100-foot gap for boats to pass through.
To seal the bay entirely they would need approval from unified command. But they are resolved to close it at the first sight of nearby oil, with or without approval, said Charles S. Houser, the mayor of Magnolia Springs, who earns a monthly salary of $100.
“We’re not going to wait for BP,” Mr. Houser said. “If we saw oil right there we’d close the bay right now. The lesson we learned from Louisiana is to act, not wait. We’ll ask for forgiveness later.”
The biggest challenge, Mr. Hinton said, has been dealing with BP and the unified command bureaucracy. The 36 fire chiefs in Baldwin County here passed a resolution to censure BP for poor communications with fire crews.
Mr. Hinton said that so far no other communities had contacted him about copying his plan. “A fire chief told me, ‘Jamie, you can slow down in your preparations, the federal government is going to take care of it.’ I said, ‘Meaning the way they took care of Katrina, Ivan and the Valdez spill?’ ”
He added: “If you wait on BP, it’ll be like Louisiana. They had a month to protect the marshes. The Bible says the good Lord made the world in seven days. I’m not going to risk what happened in Louisiana happening here.”
Special thanks to Linda Young
For Immediate Release
Date: Tuesday, June 8, 2010
CONTACT: Jim Manley, (202) 224-2939
REID SPOKESMAN: REPUBLICANS PUSH FOR $47 BILLION GIVEAWAY TO BIG OIL, PROTECTING YET ANOTHER SPECIAL INTEREST OVER THE MIDDLE CLASS
Washington, DC- Jim Manley, spokesman for Nevada Senator Harry Reid, released the following statement today regarding the Murkowski resolution of disapproval, which amounts to a Republican giveaway to big oil companies:
“Even with thousands of barrels of oil still gushing into the Gulf, Republicans are trying to hand a $47 billion giveaway to big oil companies later this week.
“This giveaway, otherwise known as the Murkowski disapproval resolution, is backed by oil company lobbyists because it would increase the nation’s consumption of oil by at least 455 million barrels, and probably waste several billion more. This latest attempt by Republicans to protect big oil companies comes after they repeatedly blocked Democrats’ attempts to hold BP fully accountable for its negligence by increasing the grossly insufficient $75 million oil spill liability cap.
“With Republicans standing up for Wall Street, health insurance companies and now big oil companies, this begs the question – is there any special interest Republicans will not protect?”
Thanks to Richard Charter