Bay County Deepwater Horizon update

Boaters are asked to exercise caution when traveling through the St. Andrew Pass, as work began Wednesday on a more "robust" booming system for the channel after conventional booming measures in counties to the west have been deemed insufficient.

The Bay County Commission unanimously approved the supplemental booming strategy at a special meeting Tuesday afternoon.

Crews started work on driving the first of 18 42-inch steel pilings and eight pile "dolphins" (each consisting of three pilings attached together with a cap on them). The pilings vary in length depending on the depth of the water, and extend at least 10 feet above the mean high tide level. The boom is comprised of 30-inch diameter, two-inch thick high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipe and will have a 48-inch long HDPE fabric weighted skirt hanging below the pipe.

In the middle of the channel, a 400-foot hinged boom gate will allow for opening or closing the pass and diverting the oil products to the sides, where skimming vessels will be used on either side of the project to collect oil.

The hinged boom in the center of the pass will allow boat traffic to come and go with the outgoing tide and will be closed to traffic with the incoming tide, if oil is actively being removed from the area.

"One of the major lessons we've learned," Bay County Public Works Director Ken Schnell said, "is that the conventional booming to the west of us has been very difficult to maintain in open channels."

Bay County worked with AshBritt, a Florida-based disaster response company, to develop the rigid booming plan for the pass. Bay County engineers as well as ocean and coastal engineers devised the plan.

The overall cost for the project is $2.8 million, with an operational and maintenance cost of $8,300 per day, Schnell said. Assuming cooperative weather, it would take about 23 days from now to complete.

Bay County has worked in concert with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Port Authority and other stakeholders to coordinate this plan. Permit applications were submitted Friday, Schnell said. The county received permits prior to beginning work.

The new, rigid booming plan evolved after various booming strategies to the west have not been sufficient, though funding the operation, for now, is coming out of county coffers. Bay County Emergency Services Chief Mark Bowen said none of the state or federal agencies have given any negative feedback about the plan and he's optimistic that the county will be reimbursed.

"Everything that can be done has been done," he said. "We may well see approval come well before we finish this project."

The Tier 1, 2 and 3 booming plans will still be exercised, Bowen said.

The Bay County Commission approved a plan to protect the St. Andrew Pass Tuesday. Click on the photo to download a .pdf of the plan.

In other news:

-- Only a few tarball sightings were reported to the Bay County Emergency Operations Center on Wednesday, though a caller did report seeing a small amount of oil in an area of North Bay. Bay County Emergency Services Chief Mark Bowen said it would be highly unlikely that the substance is in any way related to the Deepwater Horizon release, but that BP contractors were dispatched to clean it up anyway.

"There's no reason to believe this is related," Bowen said. "Pollution is part of daily life in our waterways, and just because a patch of something came up doesn't mean it's all from Deepwater Horizon," Bowen said, "but we do appreciate BP's responsiveness."

BP contractors remain working on Bay County beaches. BP Community Outreach Coordinator Vani Rao said Wednesday that some 300 BP contractors are currently working Bay County beaches during the daylight hours, and the company has begun nighttime operations as well. She said several hundred more BP workers are en route, and there could be as many as 1,000 here in coming days.

-- Two decontamination stations inside the bay for recreational vessels are being identified, though they are not built out, according to U.S. Coast Guard Commander Mike Frender. Two decontamination stations are also staged in the gulf, with one located three miles south of the St. Andrews Pass and another seven miles south of the pass. Those stations are for commercial, military, response and recreational vessels that are actively sheening as a result of contact with oil product. Once they are operable, mariners should avoid using the stations inside the bay if possible and should make every attempt to utilize the stations in the Gulf, Frender said. Boaters whose vessels may have been affected by contact with oil may contact the U.S. Coast Guard on their VHF radios at Channel 16 or Channel 71.

-- BP has contracted TriState Bird Rescue and Research to perform all oiled wildlife rehabilitation for the event. There is a stabilization center in Panama City. If people see oiled wildlife, they need to report it to the oiled wildlife hotline 866-557-1401. BP has contracted responders who are to respond to reports within an hour of the call being received, according to a statement from the state Emergency Operations Center. Problems with response times may be reported to eocw@myfwc.com. Oiled wildlife may also be reported to the local Bay County hotline at 248-6030.

-- The public is asked to report suspected oil sightings on Bay County shores or in the Gulf to Bay County's hotline at (850) 248-6030, rather than calling 9-1-1, as the emergency response system is for life-and-death situations, and Unified Command can better respond to beach cleanup requests if the local number is used.

-- Click here to visit NOAA trajectories.

-- The state Department of Environmental Protection and the state Department of Health continue to conduct water and air quality sampling. To learn more about the sampling and for health advisories concerning the Deepwater Horizon oil release, click here.

-- To report oil on the beach, a suspicious odor, oiled wildlife or for information about the oil release, please call (850) 248-6030.

-- BP's local claims office is located at 7938 Front Beach Road, in the shopping plaza near the Bay Street Deli. Business owners and those who have been affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil release may use this as a resource for recouping their financial losses. BP advises that people filing claims should still call the toll-free number to enter their information into the claims database. That number is (800) 440-0858. BP also has opened a community support office located at 3101 U.S. 98, across the street from Howell Marine and Tackle Supply. At this office, BP can provide information about the oil release and answer community questions.