Clean Water Network Florida

Clean Water Network of Florida
Are you confused?

And worried about what's really happening in the Gulf of Mexico after BP's oil disaster? Do you need the plain facts, not PR spin or wild speculation?

sunset over ocean The Clean Water Network of Florida has designed a plan to find the facts by testing the air and water for toxic contaminants, to hold public meetings, to share information, and to help workers. And that plan is eligible for one of the Pepsi Refresh Project's $250,000 Refresh the Gulf grants! (Read more).

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Clean Water Network of Florida, Inc.

The Clean Water Network of Florida is a Coalition of more than 155 groups that are committed to full implementation, enforcement and strengthening of the Clean Water Act and other safeguards of our water resources.

It includes a variety of organizations representing environmentalists, family farmers, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, surfers, boaters, faith communities, neighborhood associations, environmental justice advocates, and civic associations.

Weekly Update, August #3: 08/19/10

By  Linda Young

We have four important news items today:

  1. Update on Pepsi Refresh the Gulf grant challenge – we can make this work together
  2. Update on BP oil disaster – where did the oil go?
  3. Numeric nutrient criteria for estuaries meetings in Florida – meeting dates and locations
  4. EPA’s changes to Clean Water Act regulations – what do they mean?

Pepsi Refresh the Gulf grant challenge

Good News!!! We have moved up to #26 in the $250,000 Pepsi challenge. Thank you to everyone who is voting every day to help us win the funding to do independent sampling, community meetings, an information clearinghouse and hotline and more. WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!! Please vote every day and please send this request to all of your group members, family, friends and colleagues. They can help the Gulf Coast of Florida overcome BP’s oil disaster by just voting once a day until the end of August.

BP oil Distaster Update

In spite of the rosy scenario being painted by the White House, EPA and NOAA, the oil is not mostly gone. According to scientists at the University of South Florida and University of Georgia, most of the oil is still in the Gulf and it is very toxic. They assert that the government was extremely generous to BP in its estimates of how much oil has disappeared (magically). The oil is washing up on Florida panhandle shores daily in fairly large amounts. There are hundreds of BP oil-pickers up and down the beaches trying to pick of the oil blobs and also trying to remove oil that is buried under layers of sand. The Gulf Islands National Seashore has a machine that also cleans oil from the sand, but could use five or six more of them. There is oil in the estuaries (Perdido Bay, Santa Rosa Sound, etc) and we can expect it to continue showing up for a long time to come.

This is not good news, but it is factual news. Read the story at this link from the St. Pete Times. I’ve also provided links to two editorials from today’s papers in Pensacola and Sarasota. If you are on Facebook, then join the Clean Water Network of Florida group and you will be able to follow the news on this issue daily.

Numeric Nutrient Critera for Estuaries in Florida

The Florida DEP and the US EPA continue to hold meetings around the state regarding numeric nutrient criteria for Florida’s estuaries and Coastal waters. The plan by these agencies is to set Site Specific Criteria for every estuary in Florida. This needs to be watched closely because the criteria will be adopted completely at DEP’s discretion (which means whatever the most politically powerful polluters want). In a few places, the local government may demand appropriate criteria, but in most places, the local governments won’t oppose whatever the DEP proposes. We should all be paying attention to what happens with the criteria that gets proposed. If you know scientists that are trustworthy in your area, try to get them involved as soon as possible.

There are four meetings coming up that you should try to attend if you can. If not, we will send you a brief report and continue to update you on these water quality standards as they unfold. Here is the information for the meetings:

  1. TALLAHASSEE - August 24th, DEP Bldg., 2600 Blair Stone Rd, Room 609, 9:00 a.m. This meeting will cover the area between Perdido Bay to Apalachee Bay.
  2. WEST PALM BEACH – August 26th, SFWMD Auditorium, 3301 Gun Club Road, WPB, 9:00 a.m. This meeting will cover the SW Coast, Florida Bay, Florida Keys, Biscayne Bay, Lake Worth Lagoon, SE Florida Coast, Loxahatchee River Estuary and the St. Lucie River Estuary.
  3. BUNNELL – August 31st at 1:00 p.m. and September 1st at 9:00 a.m. - Flagler County Commission Board Chambers, Government Services Complex, 1769 East Moody Blvd., Bunnell. This meeting will cover Nassau, Amelia and St Mary’s Rivers/estuary. Also the Lower St. Johns River, Guana/Tolomato/Matanzas Rivers/estuary; the Halifax River and the Indian River Lagoon.
  4. PINELLAS PARK – September 2nd and 3rd, at 9:00 a.m. Both days. Tampa Bay Regional Planning council Conference Room, 4000 Gateway Centre Boulevard, Suite 100, Pinellas Park. On the 2nd the meeting will cover Tampa, Sarasota Bays and Charlotte Harbor. On the 3rd it will cover Suwannee, Waccasassa and Withlacoochee Rivers.

Here is an article regarding the Florida numeric nutrient criteria in general that you will find interesting.

EPA to Hold Listening Sessions on Potential Revisions to Water Quality Standards Regulation

The changes that EPA is proposing affect: antidegradation; Administrator’s Determination; designated uses; variances; Triennial Reviews; and Updates to reflect Court Decisions. We have a working group of state and national environmental groups that are reviewing EPA’s proposal and also to write comments. We will send our members a comment letter to sign on to or to use for your own letter. Some of EPA’s proposed clarifications are acceptable and others are not or need to be modified. We’ll keep you informed. Below is the official notice that EPA sent out regarding the listening sessions: The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold two public listening session on potential changes to the water quality standards regulation before proposing a national rule. Potential revisions include strengthening protection for water bodies with water quality that already exceeds or meet the interim goals of the Clean Water Act; ensuring that standards reflect a continued commitment to these goals whenever attainable; improving transparency of regulatory decisions; and strengthening federal oversight. Water quality standards are the foundation of the water quality-based approach to pollution control, including Total Maximum Daily Loads and National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permits. They are also a fundamental component of watershed management.

The listening sessions will be held via audio teleconferences on August 24 and 26, 2010 from 1-2:30 pm EDT. At the sessions, EPA will provide a review of the current regulations and a summary of the revisions the agency is considering. Clarifying questions and brief oral comments (three minutes or less) will be accepted at the sessions, as time permits. For more information visit the EPA.gov website.

Remember to VOTE for CWN-FL every day in the Pepsi grant challenge and please send the notice to all of your contacts and ask for their help. We can win this for the Gulf Coast if we all work on it together. Thank you for all your hard work and be careful in this heat!!!

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Oil Disaster Update - July: 08/09/10

By  Linda Young

Last week the US EPA announced that 75% of the oil from the BP oil disaster is gone from the Gulf. They don’t offer any data or proof, but claim that over 40% of the oil has been “disappeared” by mother nature. Many scientists are speaking out about this claim and the many, many problems with it. I encourage you to read and learn all you can on the issue. We all want everything to be okay and get back to normal asap, however, I personally am not persuaded by the EPA’s blind, unfounded optimism. BP has purchased the opinions and loyalty of many scientists, so I just hope that the ones who remain independent and credible will continue to speak out on the health (or lack there of) of the Gulf. I am placing a couple of links below to news articles about massive fish kills in Port St. Joe, FL and also off the coast of Mississippi, in case you would like to read more.

Please keep in mind that before the BP disaster, the Gulf of Mexico was considered by EPA to be the most polluted coastal waterbody in the U.S. As the director of the Clean Water Network of FL, my thoughts immediately go to the question of how will this ultimately effect our work to protect Florida’s wetlands, springs, lakes, streams, estuaries and coastal waters? We were having a pretty tough time doing that before all this happened, primarily because the state DEP and the US EPA have both been unwilling to implement and enforce the clean water act for the past 17 years or so.

Through our Florida Estuary Project we will continue to work with our local groups and members to get better pollution limits for Florida’s waters (from the estuaries all the way upstream to the land where the waters originate). We are trying to raise funding right now to do sampling of the waters along the Gulf coast, primarily for dispersants, which no government or university programs seem to be interested in. Last week we sent out a request that you help us with our fundraising effort by voting for our project in the Pepsi Refresh the Gulf challenge. Here’s the quick easy link to do that if you haven’t started yet. You can (and hopefully will) vote every day during the month of August. The top two vote getters will receive $250,000 for their projects. Please help us by using this link:
http://gulf.refresheverything.com/cleanandhealthycommunitiespeoplepoweredforever

The Florida DEP is pushing forward with a permit that will allow the Buckeye pulp mill in Perry, FL (right in the heart of the Big Bend Aquatic Seagrass Preserve) to dump up to 60 million gallons of dioxin-contaminated, highly polluted industrial waste every day – INTO THE GULF OF MEXICO. This about this for a minute please: If BP was discharging 60,000 barrels of oil a day, then that is approximately 2.5 million gallons per day. Buckeye’s discharge is about 25 times that much – every day. No wonder that there is a 10 square mile dead zone where the Fenholloway River enters the Gulf of Mexico. The new permit that DEP is pushing EPA to accept, would move the current discharge from 25 miles up the river to the mouth of the river where it enters the Gulf. According to the draft permit, the area around the discharge would become chronically toxic forever and DEP would make that perfectly legal.

If you have a few minutes (after you vote in the Pepsi challenge :o) will you drop an email to EPA in Atlanta and let them know what you think about the proposed Buckeye permit and the pollution pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico? I will post our comments and our scientists’ comments on this subject on our CWN-FL website (address below) in case you would like more information on the subject. Here’s who you need to contact:

Chris Thomas
Chief Water Protection Division
Thomas.Chris@epa.gov

I’m trying to keep this short. Thank you for your help with the fundraising and for contacting EPA. As always, thank you for the work you do every day to protect the waters in your community.

According to the AP, on August 6, the owner “came across a 2-square-mile patch of dead, floating fish on Friday about 12 miles off Gulfport, Miss. ‘Dead fish all over,’ he said.”

Read the full article on Google news or on The Star PSJ Officials Reopen Boat Ramp amidst Fish Kill The Star, August 6, 2010:

[F]ollowing an unexplained fish kill in St. Joseph’s Bay… Officials called the emergency meeting at the park to address concerns about rumors of large oil sheens sighted off St Joseph’s Bay, and whether there was any correlation with a fish kill in the same vicinity.

[D]ead fish and crabs began washing up along the shoreline by the hundreds. In addition, anonymous reports started coming in of a brown sludgy material sighted six miles offshore [Feds now say seaweed]…

Officials believe that initial signs are not pointing to red tide as the cause of the fish kill… Several residents who said they had long fished the water questioned whether the fish kill may be related to dispersants in the water… Officials said the upcoming fish and water testing may be unable to determine if dispersants were related to the fish kill.

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Your Help is Needed Now!!! Please Vote!: 08/03/10

By  Linda Young

Since the BP oil disaster, the Clean Water Network of Florida has been working to collect and provide quality information to its thousands of members across the state. Now we have designed a plan to take this even further, by testing the air and water for toxins, holding public meetings, and sharing information through a dedicated website and hotline.

The great news is this plan is eligible for one of the Pepsi Refresh Project’s $250,000 Refresh the Gulf grants! We have until August 30 to get as many votes as we can, and we need your help. Follow the link below to read more about how our project would help the people of Florida affected by this disaster. Once there, you can log in and vote. You will be required to register, but it doesn’t take more than a minute and they won’t contact you unless you opt in, and after that you’ll be able to vote for our proposal (and up to nine others) once every day for the rest of the month.

We hope that you’ll help us out by voting once every day, and encouraging your friends, family, and everyone who shares your love of the Gulf of Mexico to do the same! Let’s spread the word far and wide by including this link in emails, on websites, blog posts, and Facebook, and though word of mouth. Read about our project and VOTE NOW!  Here is the link:
     http://gulf.refresheverything.com/cleanandhealthycommunitiespeoplepoweredforever

Thank you for helping the Gulf Coast of Florida today!!!

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Weekly Update, July #3: 07/20/10

By  Linda Young

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

This is DEP’s Methane 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.

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Oil Disaster Weekly Update - July #1: 07/20/10

By  Linda Young

It has been two weeks since I sent you an update on the oil disaster as perceived through my eyes, ears and nose. I have learned a lot in that time period and much has happened in terms of government action/inaction and of course to our waters and wildlife. It’s hard to know where to start, so I’ll just start and hope that it flows in a direction that makes sense to you.

First for some good news: There is definitely more information about what is happening to clean up the oil, now available on the internet. There are numerous links that you can follow, but the two that I find most helpful are these:

They both have further links inside of them, so if you are acutely interested in this situation, I would suggest that you spend time looking over these sites. The CERT-GATOR site is pretty amazing. As I have followed these sites over the past couple of weeks, one thing that really jumps out to me is the fact that there are so many boats and resources being committed to Destin and Panama City as compared to, for instance, Pensacola. But when you look at the oil recovered, the amount at Pensacola is enormously higher. Some oil has been getting over as far as Walton and Bay Counties, but relatively small amounts. Yet, the effort to protect these areas is remarkable. While I don’t know the reason for this seeming inequity, I would guess that its political, as in St. Joe Development Corporation put in a phone call to Tallahassee and said something like, “Don’t you dare let that oil get to the beaches where we own resorts and rental properties, etc.” For those of you who are not familiar with the incredible power of St. Joe, just take my word for it, when they demand something from the state or federal government…They get it. Other possible reasons could be that St. Andrews Bay is a very high quality estuary (or was before the state and federal government donated $400 million to build a new airport which has trashed a large part of the bay) and should be protected; there is a US Fish & Wildlife office and a National Marine Fisheries office there and so the federal government is more concerned; or the tax dollars that are generated by Panama City Beach are so high that the state doesn’t want to lose that income. Anyway, the important thing about this information is that your coastline may get more or less money, resources and protection, depending on who you know and how well politically connected you are.

Early last week, I sent some questions to the folks in Tallahassee who are intricately involved in the management of the state’s resources and decisions. Below is an excerpt from the email and the questions that I sent. My primary questions centered around threats to public health and information that has been circulating about the potential for the methane under the blown-out pipe to explode and possibly cause a tsunami along the Gulf Coast. I had requested the state’s position on this previously and was given a canned response from the DEP expert on the subject. What you will read here is my response to the state’s statement:

“There is an article on Huffington Post that explains the threat very succinctly and plainly and leads to more questions. One thing that the DEP expert said that didn’t sound right to me, was that the live video feed from the ocean floor around the busted well head does not show any leaking from the ocean floor.

'I’ve watched the leaking wellhead and BP’s robots trying to plug it the last few weeks and it looks to me like all the leaking fluids go straight upward. If hydrates or an ultra high pressure bubble were forming, I would think it would be visible from one of the many robot cameras views we’ve seen on the live webcasts. We’ve seen the substrate near the leaking well. It’s muddy and turbulent, but all we’ve seen drifting by is what looks like white shell fragments and an occasional eel.'

He said that on June 17th and maybe it was after that, that we started seeing the video of oil and gas clearly bubbling up from the ocean floor around the wellhead. In any case, it clearly is happening. Senator Nelson made a big issue of it in his press conference two weeks ago. This may need to be revisited by DEP.

Also, in the transcript of the press conference given by Thad Allen on June 25th which was sent to me in the Deepwater Horizon memo, he completely dismisses any notion of a methane bubble. That in my opinion is irresponsible and worrisome. There is clearly a lot of methane down in that reserve and the government needs to be paying attention to it. We the taxpayers deserve an honest and full explanation of their findings.

I would ask that the Governor’s office immediately set up a panel of experts that have credibility with the public (so for instance if you had five experts, then no more than one would work for DEP) to review the pros and cons on this issue and to come out with a finding that will be public. If the scientists who are concerned are right and there were to be a catastrophic event(s) it seems that Florida would take the brunt of it. I don’t see how the state can not want to know all that it can possibly know about this and share it with the public. If you truly believe that we are not in danger, then you need to get that out to people.

DISPERSANTS – Would you please request from your contacts at BP or the Coast Guard, a complete list of dates, locations and amounts of dispersants that have been released? GPS coordinates would be fine for locations. I know this information must be available and the state has a right to know how close it is getting to Florida waters. If you would pass it on to me I would greatly appreciate it. Also, I would like to request that DEP contract with a reputable lab to do daily sampling of Florida waters for dispersants. If this is already being done then please advise me as to where I can review it. We need to have our state waters line sampled in several locations, as well as beaches and inland waters. Since DEP is apparently doing extensive data collection to document damages in the future, then it may be relatively easy for them to add dispersants to the list of samples that they take from inland and near shore waters. I repeat that it would be ideal to have our state water line that is 9.5 miles offshore, also sampled daily in several locations.

AIR QUALITY – As I understand what you have told me, so far the DEP has only sampled air quality for oil related pollutants in Apalachicola and Wakulla? Is this correct? I would like to request that air monitors be set up on Perdido Key, Pensacola Beach, Navarre Beach, and Okaloosa Island this week. As the storm blows the oil closer and we are likely to have winds from the south and southwest, it is critical that people have information about air quality to make informed decisions. You can’t advertise for people to come here and visit and then not make this important information available. Plus, permanent residents have a right to know if they are breathing toxic air on a regular basis. I would like the air tested either twice a day (early morning and just after dark) or constantly for such pollutants as: benzene, methane, hydrogen sulfide,and methylene chloride and any other suspected pollutants that could be expected. As I have said before, the air is often bad enough that you can’t be outside for any length of time. Surely the state wants to know if it’s residents are in danger and give us the option of making informed decisions about the risk we assume by staying in our homes for an extended period of time.

STORMS – The news stations tell us to expect more oil to get blown to shore by the TS Alex which is entering the lower Gulf of Mexico. That makes sense. Would you please make sure that larger booms are deployed to the greatest extent possible? The little sausage booms that are so popular in this disaster response are barely effective in calm seas and will be totally worthless in larger waves.

In closing, I want to thank you for all you efforts to effectively communicate what the Governor’s office and your agencies are doing to address this disaster. I’m hoping that all of your efforts will be successful. I continue to request that you secure more and better technology out in the Gulf to stop the oil from coming to shore. This would include boats and skimmers, booms and other devices that you find to be effective. I would also ask that when local governments request money for local protective measures, if you choose to deny their requests that you simultaneously provide some alternative protection that is demonstrated (or believed for good reason) to be equally or more protective. It is unhelpful for the state to deny our local governments the money to do the best that they can to protect their local resources and then not provide any sort of solution to the growing contamination that is occurring in our local waters. Our estuaries, marshes, streams, grassbeds, oysterbeds, etc MUST BE PROTECTED. I know that the state is concerned about scam-artists, bogus devices, etc. that will surely surface during this crisis situation, but it will be better to err on the side of making a few mistakes than to do nothing.

I look forward to hearing from you on the above questions and requests. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I will pass on your information to the members of my organization and all the people that they share my updates with, which is growing every day. Thank you again for all your efforts and assistance.”

That is the end of my letter. Here is what I have learned since then from the state and from EPA in Atlanta:

DISPERSANTS - The US EPA is only testing for dispersants in waters around Louisiana. There is apparently no testing for dispersants being done off the coast of Florida, on the theory that dispersants are not being sprayed in Florida waters, so therefore there is no need. Even though DEP is taking hundreds of water quality samples that will be used to build a case for damages from BP down the road, they are not testing for dispersants at all.

METHANE BUBBLE – See above. I also received a fact sheet from the state regarding methane related to offshore drilling. It was unhelpful. I was told that the state is looking into the question that I posed in the email above, but I have received no further helpful information regarding my concern about the methane gas issue.

Air Quality – Below is what I got from the state. After talking to many people in government, I don’t see any evidence that they want to know if the air is safe or not. Or the water for that matter.

Four VOC monitors have been established in Florida at: Naval Air Station Pensacola, Panama City Beach, Ft. Walton, and Eastpoint. Two of the monitors are run by EPA (with state assistance) and two are run entirely by the state. Both EPA and DEP monitors are sited according to EPA criteria established for this purpose.

The monitors are located where populations are more concentrated and better represent the air quality most local citizens are breathing; the locations are also adequate to assess ambient air quality at the coast. Direct placement of the monitors on or adjacent to the beach would not be considered the most ideal location. In this case, though, the Naval Air Station monitor is actually located just off the beach, so we have at least one location this is located adjacent to the beach. Also very important to note, the sites have to be in secured locations to protect the equipment. We believe that all four sites adequately balance all the considerations that need to be made in placing the monitors. [MY NOTE: the Naval Air Station is not located just off the beach].

We characterize the air monitoring effort for the oil spill as EPA’s effort. Florida is assisting EPA in this effort. To improve and augment coverage for Florida citizens, the state has added the two sites for VOC monitoring. In addition to the DEP monitoring results, we will soon be posting the EPA VOC monitoring results on the DEP air monitoring web page (EPA's website).

CLEAN UP TECHNOLOGY: Numerous people have sent me questions about who to contact to share clean-up technology. Here’s what I got from the state:

Below are links to be used by citizens who wish to submit for evaluation, or bring to the attention of decision-makers, technologies for use in connection with the oil contamination.

I hope this information will be helpful to you. As always, there is so much to tell, and I know it can be overwhelming. Many of you have written me with specific questions and that’s great. I’ll try to answer each one as they come in. You’ll hear from me again next week.

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