Spoll, Younger blast $15,000 oil plan

‘Maybe we should take the dollars, throw them out there and hope they soak it up.’

STEVE REID
Editor & Publisher
sreid@lbknews.com

At least two Longboat Key town commissioners castigated the oil spill response plan produced by Town-hired consultants Coastal Planning & Engineering at Monday’s Town Commission meeting.

The plan was intended to add another level of security and protection beyond the Coast Guard and British Petroleum’s official response plan, which is called the Area Contingency Plan (ACP). But several commissioners said the plan, dubbed the Local Action Plan (LAP), is insufficient in its scope, failed to accomplish the objectives and is unworthy of implementation. They also said it is a waste of the $15,000 price tag.

For Mayor George Spoll, the plan failed to recognize the need to protect vast areas of mangrove and tidal areas where water enters the island’s canals and inlets.

“If the oil gets this far, than why bother?” said Spoll referring to what he saw as the pointlessness of implementing the plan.

“To try and pass this off as an engineering solution is a joke. A chain is as strong as its weakest link, and this is a travesty,” he said.

Spoll objected to the plan, calling for booms on main canals that were identified by using aerial pictures. Spoll said the empirical on-the-ground reality is that the plan would accomplish nothing, because it left stretches of the island vulnerable.

“It is absolutely evident they have no familiarity with the terrain, and it is only indicative of the shortsightedness of the entire plan,” said Spoll.

Town Manager Bruce St. Denis, who commissioned the plan from CP&E, said the plan was meant to be more conceptual than an engineered response showing precise boom placement.

St. Denis also said that CP&E’s professional opinion would carry additional weight in the Coast Guard’s consideration of adopting elements of the Local Action Plan into its ACP.

Ultimately, the Coast Guard and British Petroleum will follow the ACP if oil were to hit the Southwest coast. St. Denis and other municipal and local officials are attempting to add additional protections and increase the scope of the adopted ACP, and communities are lobbying to have their resources protected. St. Denis received authorization last month to develop and implement such a plan after he told the board of the issues that Panhandle communities faced when the Coast Guard and BP’s official plan was either implemented incorrectly or proved insufficient.

But for Spoll, the plan CP&E developed was so poorly executed that it must be redone to be effective.

“How can you give the Coast Guard a plan that is supposed to work, and you know it won’t work?” said Spoll.

St. Denis responded that the Local Action Plan “is just another barrier in case the oil gets past the ACP.”

For Commissioner Phill Younger, the plan leaves the Key vulnerable.

“Drawing a couple of red lines on a map is not going to stop anything. I don’t see a barrier. Maybe we should take the dollars and throw them out there and hope they soak it up,” said Younger.

Spoll said the onus is on CP&E to explain its actions and why such an insufficient report was proffered.

County manager wrangles with town manager
St. Denis faced strong words against his initiative to implement a Local Action Plan when he brought CP&E engineer and principal Tom Campbell to a response strategy meeting with Sarasota County Manager Jim Ley recently. After the meeting, St. Denis wrote Ley the following:

“I don’t think it is responsible for us to assume we will only see impacts in the form of tar balls and think we can address this issue when the oil shows up in another form and response time is limited. That is why it is being brought up now. The costs will be high but not insurmountable. There is a good chance that they will ultimately be reimbursable. The cost of inaction will be much higher. The Longboat Key Town Commission has already given direction to step in if we see the island is not being adequately protected. If Sarasota County is in, than I think it logical you take the lead. If not, we will work with Sarasota and Venice to see what can be done. Consideration of this contingency is not a staff function. It is our responsibility as managers. Jim, I am not looking for more spin and speeches. What is Sarasota County going to do?”

St. Denis sent the e-mail to Ley in a continuation of his effort to have the county and all parties involved recognize Longboat’s need for additional protection over the current ACP. St. Denis said the county will be involved in the regional request to augment or modify the official Coast Guard and BP plan, and gaining county support of Longboat’s initiative is important. But when Ley responded to St. Denis Monday, June 21, Ley accused St. Denis of manipulating the process.

“What really upsets me is you brought a private contractor into a policy coordination meeting and marketed, in fact came close to demanding, a specific solution. Then you asked me an open-ended commitment question as to the county’s intent… When you asked to bring your guy to the meeting I of course said ‘yes,’ expecting a staff expert. Your action came across to me as manipulative and a sad attempt to play small politics with the circumstance.”

Ley then said the team “will evaluate your idea and give you honest feedback” within 10 days. Ley also wrote of the precedent any specific action might make along the county’s 40-plus miles of shoreline. Then Ley wrote, “Don’t be unprofessional and ask me to commit to something before it is vetted by asking a question like, ‘we have to know if the county is going to protect us?’”

In closing, Ley told St. Denis, “You have to suspend your belief in specific solutions (just as I have to suspend my belief in what I think will or will not work) and be a leader/manager in a reasoned manner and let the technicians do their work. The inability to do that makes you just one of the many emotional voices demanding this action or that…We ourselves need to exhibit the leadership to rise above the fray of shrill voices making demands that we own this thing—not become one of them.”

St. Denis explained to Ley that CP&E engineer Campbell had direct experience. St. Denis also told Ley that he does not seek to manipulate the process, but rather wants to know clearly if the county and other municipalities will agree to enact the Area Contingency Plan if the Coast Guard or BP fails or appears to be making an inadequate response.

“I think that question should be on the table when we meet again,” wrote St. Denis.

St. Denis said Thursday the county agreed to recommend to the Coast Guard and BP that Longboat’s Local Action Plan be incorporated into the official response.