http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/20/v-fullstory/1739673/florida-legislature-rejects-oil.html#ixzz0uKhdudTj
Posted on Wednesday, 07.21.10

How they voted:
The House voted 67-44 Tuesday to end the special session on oil drilling. Here’s how members of the South Florida delegation voted. A “yes” vote is a vote to end the session.

Yes

Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale
Bovo, R-Hialeah
Fresen, R-Miami
Gonzalez, R-Hialeah
Hasner, R-Delray Beach
Hudson, R-Naples
Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami
Rivera, R-Miami

No

Braynon, D-Miami Gardens
Bris, D-North Miami
Bullard, D-Miami
Clarke-Reed, D-Deerfield Beach
Garcia, D-Miami Beach
Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach
Jenne, D-Dania Beach
Kiar, D-Davie
Llorente, R-Miami
Porth, D-Coral Springs
Robaina, R-Miami
Rogers, D-Lauderdale Lakes
Sands, D-Weston
Saunders, D-Key West
Skidmore, D-Boca Raton
Steinberg, D-Miami Beach
Thurston, D-Plantation
Waldman, D-Coconut Creek
Zapata, R-Miami

Absent/Not voting

Bush, D-Miami
Flores, R-Miami
Planas, R-Miami
Yolly Roberson, D-Miami
Schwartz, D-Hollywood

THE Senate voted 18-16 on Tuesday to end the session. Here’s how the South Florida delegation voted.

Yes

Atwater, R-North Palm Beach
Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami
Ring, D-Margate

No

Gelber, D-Miami Beach
Smith, D-Lauderdale Lakes
Sobel, D-Hollywood
Villalobos, R-Miami

Absent/not voting

Bullard, D-Miami Garcia, R-Miami Rich, D-Weston Wilson, D-Miami

By STEVE BOUSQUET MARY ELLEN KLAS, LEE LOGAN AND JOHN FRANK
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE — Moving with extraordinary speed, the Florida Legislature took just two hours Tuesday to reject Gov. Charlie Crist’s proposal to give voters the chance to amend the state Constitution and ban offshore oil drilling.

In a brief special session, Republicans carried out a plan to block Crist from scoring political points by leading the charge for what they see as a symbolic ban on near-shore drilling, something already barred by state law.

The referendum is strongly supported by Democrats and independents whose votes Crist covets as an independent U.S. Senate candidate.

Lawmakers said they would work on another special session in September, one focused on long-term measures to provide economic relief to people affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf.

A fired-up Crist heaped scorn on lawmakers, criticizing them for an “arrogance of power” and urging voters to throw them out of office in November.

“They are the do-nothing Legislature,” said Crist, who called the special session in hopes of beating the Aug. 4 deadline to add a referendum to the Nov. 2 general election ballot.

“I can’t believe that this Legislature has shirked their duty so badly,” Crist said. “How arrogant can a Legislature be? I can’t believe that they would have that much of a lack of respect for the people of Florida.”

Neither the House nor the Senate debated the issue itself. Instead, both chambers debated whether the drilling ban proposal should be debated.

As scores of drilling opponents looked on wearing “Let the People Vote” stickers, the House voted 67-44 to curtail debate after 10 minutes, and senators followed with a vote of 18 to 16.

Two Democratic senators who sided with Republicans played key roles in blocking a vote on the measure: Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, and Gary Siplin, D-Orlando. Their influence was magnified by the absences of three Democrats and two moderate Republicans who are both Crist allies.

Eight Republican senators, four from the Tampa Bay region, voted against ending the session prematurely. They were Lee Constantine of Altamonte Springs, Victor Crist of Tampa, Paula Dockery of Lakeland, Mike Fasano of New Port Richey, Dennis Jones of Treasure Island, Evelyn Lynn of Ormond Beach, Steve Oelrich of Gainesville and Alex Villalobos of Miami, who sponsored the drilling ban, and who threw in the towel when the House adjourned after 49 minutes.

“I can’t prevail because they left,” Villalobos said.

In the House, four Republicans sided with Democrats in support of debating the ban. They were Reps. Kevin Ambler, R-Tampa and three Miami lawmakers: Reps. Marcelo Llorente, Julio Robaina, and Juan Zapata. One House Democrat, Rep, Leonard Bembry of Greenville, voted with Republicans to block debate.

House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, pounded his gavel at 12:02 p.m., quickly rejecting Crist’s call for a constitutional drilling ban and criticizing the governor for calling lawmakers to work on short notice.

“The fact remains that he has called us here at the last possible moment to consider a constitutional amendment for which he never proposed any language and permitted far too little time for reflection and review,” Cretul said. “This is a terrible way to propose constitutional changes.”

Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said he tried to persuade Crist and Cretul to expand the scope of the session to discuss tax relief and creation of a claims advocate, but got no takers: “Unfortunately, I did not receive a receptive audience.”

But Crist said neither legislative leader asked him to expand the session’s agenda.

Later Tuesday, the Senate convened a select committee on Florida’s economy for a two-hour hearing on relief measures.

The House immediately went home, but Cretul created six work groups of lawmakers to seek solutions ranging from economic aid to the need for tougher criminal penalties for environmental disasters.

The leaders of all six work groups are Republicans who are not part of the House leadership and who oppose Crist’s Senate candidacy. Even though the Panhandle is currently the area most directly affected by the disaster, the chairman of the work group on meeting the needs of affected areas is Rep. Marlene O’Toole, R-Lady Lake, from The Villages in Central Florida.

Two busloads of drilling opponents arrived at the Capitol only to see their hopes quickly dashed. Wearing green “Let the People Vote” stickers, 150 cheered, and some squeezed through the crowd to shake the hand of Crist, who, in the presence of eight TV cameras, stuck one of the stickers on his suit lapel.

Ed Berry, who owns a natural food store and massage therapy business in Walton County, made the two-and-a-half hour bus ride to the Capitol, and pleaded for the chance to permanently ban drilling off Florida’s coast.

“Big Oil is destroying our communities. It’s destroying our lives,” he said. “Fifteen years of hard work is going down the drain.”

Now that the Legislature has rejected Crist’s call for an anti-drilling amendment, the question is which side will reap any political benefit. Even if Crist’s anti-drilling ban were in the Constitution, it wouldn’t have prevented the Deepwater Horizon spill, which was beyond the reach of state jurisdiction.

Three leading candidates for governor all had strongly-worded reactions to the Legislature’s action. Republican Rick Scott blasted lawmakers for not taking his advice and enacting an Arizona-style immigration law. “The career politicians in Tallahassee have yet again wasted taxpayer dollars for a political stunt,” Scott said.

Scott’s GOP primary opponent, Bill McCollum, said a constitutional amendment to ban drilling was unnecessary, but if it went forward, he would favor it. “I’d want to see us address the economic and environmental concerns, particularly in the Panhandle,” added McCollum, the state attorney general.

Democrat Alex Sink, the state’s chief financial officer, called the lawmakers’ truncated session a “complete failure,” adding, “Instead of action, the tone deaf Florida Legislature has been twiddling their thumbs.”

Crist’s Republican U.S. Senate rival, Marco Rubio, described the session as “Charlie Crist’s meltdown” that “embodies everything that’s wrong with government today. Instead of presenting solutions, he points fingers and blames others.”

Tuesday’s short-lived session was not the shortest in Florida history. On Nov. 17, 1970, lawmakers convened for just 36 minutes to provide money for then-Gov.-elect Reubin Askews transition program.

Cristina Silva contributed to this report.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/deepwaterhorizon/7115411.html

By ERIC NALDER

July 20, 2010, 9:27PM

Mario Tama Getty Images

A worker adjusts an oil boom in Louisiana in the area where the Pointe Aux Chenes tribe lives. The tribe is concerned about leakage spotted near BP’s newly installed oil well cap.

Dangerous and short-tempered subterranean gases have erupted to kill 29 oil drillers since 1979, and despite repeated recommendations aimed at quelling blowouts, years and even decades have passed as accidents continued unabated.

The Houston Chronicle reviewed 66 blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico – one of the most dangerous places on Earth to drill for oil – and found that time and again, federal investigators’ calls for improvement were either largely ignored or delayed amid industry consternation.

In the last 10 years, blowouts triggered explosions on five rigs in the Gulf, a minefield of Mississippi mud deposits, and caused the evacuation of 17, according to the Chronicle’s examination of scores of documents.

Blowouts, known technically as “loss of well control incidents,” range in seriousness from slow old leakers to explosive killers that can open the earth and swallow a rig while spewing gas, drilling mud, water vapor, sand and oil.

There are so many man-made holes in the Gulf, 50,000, that the government has lost track of at least 4,500 old wells, records show.

And preventing blowouts may be more difficult than curbing airline disasters. Unlike airplanes, no two wells are alike. Building an oil well is like building a ship in an opaque bottle, threading massive pipes and intricate tools through a dark, narrow hole.

Documents show the top two causes of blowouts are failed cement jobs and surprise encounters with shallow gas pockets. Also common are well-design mistakes and poor maintenance.

Yet, solutions have been elusive, according to records.

“The administrative process has gotten extremely burdensome,” said Alan Spackman, vice president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors, adding that it takes too long for the government to change regulations. Spackman once worked as a Coast Guard marine safety officer.

Jo Ann Freeman needs no convincing. Her husband, Ben Freeman, 61, was killed in 2001 even as oil executives and government bureaucrats pondered for years an equipment requirement that might have saved his life.

Freeman told his wife as he headed for the waters off the Texas coast that he was “going to a bad job.” During his second week on location aboard the jack-up rig Marine IV, the crew encountered natural gas 90 feet sooner than expected 26 miles off Surfside Beach.

Shortly before dawn, hell blasted up the drill pipe.

Thirty-nine crew members drifted in escape capsules before noticing Freeman was missing. He was last seen helping others down slippery stairs, and his body was never found. Over 35 years, Freeman had risen from roughneck to high-paid consultant.

Mineral Management Services records show the blowout preventer failed because a section of drill pipe jammed inside it, preventing it from closing over the gas geyser. The blowout preventer lacked a “blind shear ram” specifically designed for such jams.

When it works properly, the shear ram cuts through most pipe jammed in a BOP so it can control a wild well.

During the 25 years leading up to Freeman’s death, shear rams might have prevented a dozen other blowouts that caused nine deaths, records show. As a result, federal agencies including the U.S. Coast Guard and MMS on six occasions had recommended requiring them on rigs like the Marine IV.

Fight over shear ram rule

The oil industry successfully opposed it, citing costs and worries that shear rams might hamper other well-control efforts or cut pipe needlessly. Even after Freeman died, the peril continued.

Nineteen months later, 600 feet of steel tubing jammed a BOP during an Anadarko operation. An Anadarko spokesman said the BOP complied with federal regulations, even without a shear ram. Again, MMS accident investigators recommended requiring them.

Not until 2006 did the shear ram become the rule.

“Certainly in hindsight it makes sense,” admitted Spackman, whose group opposed it at the time.

In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, Spackman and others say more rule changes are needed. Upgrading blowout preventers isn’t enough, he said, because “when you get to the point of using it, a lot of other things have gone wrong.”

A cementing failure likely contributed to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. MMS attempted in 2000 to create new regulations to prevent cementing failures, but records show it faced opposition from the Offshore Operators Committee, representing 70 companies in offshore exploration and oil and gas production.

OOC executive director Allen Verret wrote at the time: “We have serious reservation with MMS prescribing any type of ‘Best Cementing Practices.’ ”

Verret told the Chronicle the industry prefers guidelines to prescriptions: “It hasn’t been uncommon for there to be some sort of knee-jerk reaction by government. They throw a lot of stuff at the wall. Some sticks and some doesn’t.”

The other leading cause of Gulf blowouts, the shallow gas problem, has plagued drillers for 50 years. Gases roam the Gulf’s subsea geology, moving from crevice to crevice, launching surprise attacks on drillers who don’t detect them before starting operations. The vapors change locations because of natural forces and even drilling activities.

Crater swallows ship

The hazard hit the headlines back in 1964, when a blowout near Louisiana set fire to the C.P. Baker drill ship and opened a crater that literally swallowed it. After C.P. Baker, devices were required on rigs that divert gases safely out to sea, away from the machinery.

However, certain pre-drill tests weren’t required on wells planned near existing holes on the theory the hazards would be clear, though MMS repeatedly recommended conducting them.

A Chevron crew was surprised by shallow gas in April 2003, just 100 feet from the tracks of four previous wells. Records show shallow gas caused or contributed to 10 blowouts in the last decade.

In 2001 and 2002, two rigs were set ablaze in 18 months, one a BP operation and the other Forest Oil. Both companies declined comment.

The government sent out a notice to oil field lessees calling for more testing in 2008, 44 years after C.P. Baker.

A 2008 Chevron blowout appears in hindsight to have been a rehearsal for Deepwater Horizon and its design problems. Like BP, Chevron was in the final stages of drilling a well aboard Transocean rig Discoverer Deep Seas. Because of the blowout, drillers lost 500,000 gallons of drilling mud into the earth below the wellhead, and spilled 293 gallons onto the ocean floor.

Afterward, Chevron adopted its own well-design guidelines for deepwater operations – guidelines that might have prevented the Macondo well disaster had BP adopted them. Key was a casing pipe, or “tieback string,” not employed on Macondo, that provides superior barriers against blowouts, records show.

But federal regulators did not issue a safety alert to other companies.

Maintenance woes afflict wells of all types. On a modern deepwater BP well in May 2003, the entire riser pipe, which connects the floating rig to the wellhead, broke apart because of a failed joint, reports say.

Because of that close call with a blowout, MMS investigators recommended twice-a-year thorough inspections of deepwater risers, rather than one.

No such change has been made to the industry standard, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

ericnalder@hearst.com
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.offshoreenergylawblog.com/07-20-2010boemtoholdpublicmeetingsonoffshoredrillingsafety/

July 20, 2010 by David L. Wochner, Benjamin Norris, Caileen N. Gamache

Michael Bromwich, Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (“BOEM”) announced yesterday that he will lead a series of public meetings to collect information and views on offshore deepwater drilling safety, well blowout containment, and oil spill response. The meetings are designed to collect input from industry representatives, environmental organizations, the public, state and local leaders, and experts in an effort to enhance the safety of deepwater drilling. The meetings are scheduled to occur in August and September in the following cities: New Orleans, LA; Lafayette, LA; Mobile, AL; Pensacola, FL; Santa Barbara, CA; Anchorage, AK; Biloxi, MS; and Houston, TX. Director Bromwich plans to release dates and specific locations soon. Written comments will also be accepted at the meetings, online, and by mail.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38337393/ns/world_news-world_environment

Jiang He / AP
In this photo released by Greenpeace, a firefighter submerged in thick oil during an attempt to fix an underwater pump is brought ashore by his colleagues in Dalian, China on Tuesday.by CARA ANNA

updated 7/21/2010 7:51:14 AM ET
Share Print Font: +-BEIJING — China’s largest reported oil spill more than doubled in size to 165 square miles by Wednesday, forcing nearby beaches to close and prompting one official to warn of a “severe threat” to sea life and water quality.

The oil slick started spreading five days ago when a pipeline at a busy northeastern port exploded, sparking a massive fire that took more than 15 hours to contain. Hundreds of boats have been deployed to help with the cleanup.

At least one person has been killed in those efforts, a 25-year-old firefighter, Zhang Liang, who drowned Tuesday after a wave threw him from a vessel and pushed him out to sea, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. Another man who also fell in was rescued.

Beaches near Dalian, once named China’s most livable city, were closing as oil started reaching their shores, Xinhua reported.

“The oil spill will pose a severe threat to marine animals, and water quality, and the sea birds,” Huang Yong, deputy bureau chief for Dalian, China Maritime Safety Administration, told Dragon TV.

Crude oil started pouring into the Yellow Sea off a busy northeastern port after a pipeline exploded late last week, sparking a massive 15-hour fire.

The cause of the blast was still not clear Wednesday. The pipeline is owned by China National Petroleum Corp., Asia’s biggest oil and gas producer by volume.

Images of 100-foot-high flames shooting up near part of China’s strategic oil reserves drew the immediate attention of President Hu Jintao and other top leaders. Now the challenge is cleaning up the greasy brown plume floating off the shores of Dalian.

The environmental group, Greenpeace China, shot several photographs at the scene Tuesday before their team was forced to leave. They showed oil-slicked rocky beaches, a man covered in thick black sludge up to his cheekbones, and workers carrying a colleague covered in oil away from the scene.

Activists said it was too early to tell what impact the pollution might have on marine life.

Largest spill in recent memory
Officials told Xinhua they did not yet know how much oil had leaked, but China Central Television reported no more pollution, including oil and firefighting chemicals, had entered the sea Tuesday. It was not clear how far the spill was from China’s closest neighbor in the region, North Korea.

Dalian’s vice mayor, Dai Yulin, told Xinhua 40 specialized oil-control boats would be on the scene along with hundreds of fishing boats. Oil-eating bacteria were also being used in the cleanup.

“Our priority is to collect the spilled oil within five days to reduce the possibility of contaminating international waters,” he said.

But an official with the State Oceanic Administration has warned the spill will be difficult to clean up even in twice that amount of time.

The Dalian port is China’s second largest for crude oil imports, and last week’s spill appears to be the country’s largest in recent memory.

“In terms of what is known to the public, this is definitely the biggest,” said Yang Ailun, spokeswoman for Greenpeace China.

“Government and business leaders have been telling the media that there’s no environmental impact. From Greenpeace’s perspective, that’s very irresponsible,” she added. “It’s too early to tell. Oil is still floating around.”

While the Chinese public has not seized on the accident as its own version of the massive BP spill in the United States, warnings over the country’s increasing dependence on oil were clear.

The International Energy Agency said Tuesday that China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest energy consumer, using the equivalent of 2.252 billion tons of oil last year. China immediately questioned the calculation.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Dear Friends of Florida’s waters:
I’m sure that each of you are doing the same thing I am, which is watching the television with bated-breath in hopes that the gushing hole in the Gulf of Mexico will soon cease to flow permanently. As we have been told, that will not be the end of this nightmare, but the end of the beginning. There is a tremendous amount of information available now, but the main problem that I have on a regular basis is figuring out what is credible and what is not. The news and information spans the spectrum between pure PR spin on the one hand to wild speculation on the other. This leaves many of us confused, discouraged and/or scared. What are we supposed to think?

Here’s what I have learned since our last update:

STATE AND FEDERAL RESPONSE EFFORTS – Local governments are reporting that coordination with the state has improved in recent weeks. Escambia County finally got reimbursed for the millions of dollars that they have spent up through the end of June and the state is in the process of taking over the private contract that Escambia County had negotiated to protect its coast and resources. The problem that was created for local governments when the state was changing its policies and procedures on a daily basis sometimes, has improved.

Another recent change is that BP now has a representative at several Panhandle local response sites. Early in the process, Escambia County offered its Emergency Operations Center as a central coordination site, but BP declined the offer. An operation center is now established at Bayou Chico and serves Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties. Other similar centers are established in counties to the east.

HEALTH AND SAFETY ISSUES:

Air quality – The DEP and EPA websites have air quality data from their monitoring stations but they are averaging the data over 24 hours or longer (maybe up to a week as far as I can tell), so that data is not helpful in my opinion. Lately the air quality in the western panhandle has been much better in terms of not smelling the oil like we have in previous weeks and months. However, our members in Panama City and Port St. Joe reported strong oil odors last week. They contacted the local health department who told them that the air was fine and that they were imagining the odors. Whatever.

Water quality – If you visit the FL DEP website, you will find air and water quality data. The problem is that they only have two basic findings: non-detect or detected but not believed to be related to the BP oil disaster. Hmmmmm . . . Just across the Florida/Alabama line, the water and sand were tested by the local TV station WKRG and they found high levels of oil in the beach and sand where children were swimming and playing.

There has been less oil coming ashore in the Panhandle over the past week or two and that seems to be mostly by the graces of Mother Nature, more than a great improvement in the mechanical efforts to keep the oil at bay. The NOAA website and others shows the concentration of surface oil to be about 80 to 90 miles off the coast of Pensacola today. There is essentially no way to keep the oil out of Pensacola Pass due to the depth and swift currents. The only thing that is being done is to try to clean it up after it enters the pass. It has moved at times as far as the Bob Sikes Bridge.

To track oil, the Coast Guard is using a hot-air blimp that cruises back and forth along the coast, which is actually quite impressive. They report that the oil is visible from above but is impossible to see from down in the water until late in the afternoon. They often see swimmers in the water with oil and they are completely unaware of its presence. All of the Florida beaches are open and ready for business.

At Perdido Pass, booms are being used with marginal success apparently. Destin Pass has a different technology in place, which is apparently being somewhat successful as well. The lengths of coastline that have no passes cut or maintained (for natural passes) seem to be getting a lot less oil on the beaches, such as Navarre Beach. I have no scientific information to support this observation, but it makes sense when you think about it.

Methane – http://204.90.20.174/oilspill/documents/methane_fact_sheet.pdf

This is DEP’s fact sheet on the concern that has been raised regarding the possibility of a tsunami that would be induced by a methane explosion under the floor of the Gulf at the well site. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. I truly don’t know what to think about this.

HURRICANES – Everyone on the Florida Gulf Coast should think about how a hurricane in the Gulf might affect their property and/or their ability to return home after a major hurricane. I have inquired of state Emergency officials if there will be a statewide policy regarding whether homeowners would be able to return home after a hurricane, if there was land contamination from oil/chemicals. I have been told that state emergency officials are discussing this issue but all decisions will be made on a county level.

In discussing this with NW Florida emergency operations officials, I was told that in the event that a storm washes oil/chemicals onto the land and/or into residences and businesses, there would be several factors to consider. If it is fresh oil that has not weathered and contains high levels of VOCs (volatile organic compounds), then that would be the worse case scenario as that would likely pose a health concern. If there is a health risk, then people will not be allowed to return to their homes as long as that risk is present.

If the debris is contaminated, or the roads are contaminated with oil/chemicals then that will dramatically slow down the removal and recovery process and time. In advance of a storm scenario, officials have no way of knowing if the oil would come ashore, how much oil could come ashore, where it would appear or whose property would be impacted. The prudent thing to do would be to remove anything that is important to you from your home or business that you aren’t willing to part with permanently.

There are many unknown answers to questions concerning liability in the event of a hurricane. You should definitely check with your insurance agent about what your coverage will offer you in terms of protection. One thing for sure is that federal flood insurance does not offer loss of use coverage. So, if there is a storm surge that deposits oil/chemicals on your property, making it unusable for a period of time and that is the only damage you have (meaning there is no wind damage that would trigger a wind policy claim) then even if you are prohibited from returning to your home by local authorities, you will have no loss of use coverage from your flood policy.

If there is wind and oil damage then the answers will vary depending on whom you have wind insurance with. Most wind policies exclude pollutants in the definition of damaged. Like I said, there are many unanswered questions at this point. As I find out more, I will pass the information on to you. There is a meeting of state Emergency Operations directors next week and this is one of the many discussions that will happen there.

Any liability that BP should assume will likely be addressed in a court setting and will probably not be settled quickly. I’m trying to think positively that the hurricanes are going to miss all of us for the next couple of years (at least).

Financial impact – one final bit of unwelcome news that I learned today from my insurance agent is that in the past week, he personally knows of two different mortgage companies that are refusing to write mortgages for homes on Pensacola Beach because of the oil. This is very troubling news and I’ll let you know when and if I learn more about it.

That’s probably enough information for one update. Much of this is not water quality related per se, but as we are seeing, the quality of our water can affect many aspects of our lives. We have seen in previous hurricanes that contaminants do get washed on shore and into peoples homes when storm surges occur. For instance, during hurricane Ivan, dioxin and arsenic contaminated sludge was dislodged from the bottom of Perdido Bay and washed into the yards and homes of hundreds of families living around the Bay. In that case the state and local governments couldn’t have cared less that a discharge from the International Paper Company mill in Pensacola had caused thousands of people to be at risk from exposure to these toxic chemicals. Local residents had to get the sludge tested to determine their risk level.

It is impossible to know how a similar situation involving BP’s oil will be handled. As individuals, we have little or no control over BP’s oil right now. But, facilities that are willfully discharging toxic chemicals into our coastal waters (many without current permits) while the FL DEP looks the other way, are putting us at risk and this lax implementation and enforcement of the Clean Water Act should end. These polluting industries include papermills, phosphate mines, coal-fired power plants, chemical plants, sewage plants, and others. If you live within 50 miles of any of these types of facilities, then you may want to check into your exposure risk in the event of a storm surge.

In closing, if you live anywhere along the Gulf Coast, I want to still urge you to make sure that your local government is ready to protect your local beaches and waters in the event that the oil makes its way to your area. It is better to be prepared and never have to use the plan than to suddenly find yourself facing oil contamination and have no precautions in place.

For all of Florida’s waters,
Linda Young
Director