BP OIL SPILL | 5 years later: With no oil touching Manatee County, explosion effects still felt in county
MANATEE -- When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded April 20, 2010, and spilled millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, not a drop landed on Manatee County beaches.
Still, five years later, the effects of the spill continue to be felt in Manatee: in increased tourism -- many tourists came to Manatee because of oil elsewhere; increased conservation efforts; and lessons learned that might be applied in future disasters.
"Five years later we have a sensitivity to our vulnerabilities as a coastal county at the seat of some of Florida's largest commercial cargo ports," said Charlie Hunsicker, Manatee's director of parks and natural resources, "and an awareness of the sensitivities and awareness that those resources need special protection and attention from the potential threats that this vibrant port economy poses to the natural environments around the ports."
Manatee County has applied important lessons to protect itself from any future disaster, Hunsicker says. Among them is the resiliency of the environment, and the importance of taking proactive steps to protect the region.
One example is a planned 150-acre ex
pansion of Robinson Preserve in Northwest Bradenton, which will increase the preserve's acreage to a total 637 acres. The expansion and restoration plans include an education center, nature trails, additional marshes, a kayak launch and vegetative screens.
The additional coastal marshes and land forms will "contribute to the nursery areas where important fish and animals and plants grow up, and then migrate to and then repopulate areas where damages have occurred," Hunsicker said. "These are the tools that Mother Nature uses to draw from healthy populations of plants and animals to refurbish, rebuild and restore losses in the areas most impacted."
Diversity and abundance go hand in hand in good natural area planning and management, and coastal preserves are an opportunity to accomplish both goals, Hunsicker said.
"Five years after the spill, we continue to rebuild our habitats in Manatee County for enhanced resiliency through more diversity and abundance of our important coastal habitats," Hunsicker said.
No one had seen a disaster of this magnitude in the U.S. before the BP spill, said Julie Wraithmell, director of wildlife conservation for Audubon Florida.
"If we can ensure populations are as resilient as we can make them, they can weather the challenges that may still be yet to come," she said. "When you dump that much oil and associated chemicals in the Gulf of Mexico, how does that affect the food web long-term?"
As oil continued to spill into the Gulf of Mexico for weeks, there was a loss of public confidence in the water quality of the Gulf of Mexico.
"We've worked ever since to say, 'No, those damages were not directly affecting many of the Gulf places,'" Hunsicker said. "It is inaccurate to assume that every element of our environment was able to bounce right back."
Manatee County has reason to take precautions, as every week about 10 tankers and barges laden with petroleum products come into the Port of Tampa.
"If stranded or struck by another vessel, they (the ships) have the potential to spill thousands of millions of gallons of petroleum products into our environment," Hunsicker said. It happened in 1996 when two freighters collided, causing oil to come onshore in southern Pinellas County.
After that incident, the U.S. Coast Guard responded and prepared a future spill response plan and strategically staged cleanup vessels, equipment and supplies at various locations, including Port Manatee, to respond to the next spill, Hunsicker said.
"We realized then, as now, that it is very difficult to hold off sheets of oil or gasoline floating on the surface from moving through passes of great current," Hunsicker said.
Tourism impacts in Manatee
After the oil spill, tourists who normally vacationed in Florida's Panhandle began looking for other coastal destinations. Many of the tourists traveling from the southeast region of the U.S. -- Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis and Nashville markets -- chose the Bradenton area.
"We saw business increase by over 12 percent during that crisis," said Elliott Falcione, director of the Bradenton Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. "You always wish the best for other communities in your state, but we knew that once we would expose them to our community, that there is a good chance they would come back. And we still see that today."
Since many families have traditions to vacation in the same city, it takes adverse situations such as the 2010 oil spill to break those traditions, Falcione said. And when natural disasters do strike, public relations efforts are especially important.
"If your community is untouched by the adversity, you share that news in the marketplace," he said. "If your product is affected by the adversity, then you share that news as well, because the last thing you want is to tell a consumer something that is not accurate."
In Manatee County reserves, there is $1 million allocated specifically for public relations, and it only takes the county administrator to sign off on using it, Falcione said.
"You need the money to get the message out," he said. "Hope we never need to touch it."
Immediately after the oil spill, Falcione said they shared the message to all of Bradenton's feeder markets that Manatee's beaches were clean and untouched.
Whether the oil spill kept regular Manatee County visitors away is unknown.
"We really will never know the true answer whether from a perception standpoint the marketplace felt that we were affected or not," Falcione said. "We do know regardless that our visitation increased during the crisis. We continued to send the message beyond the crisis that we have beautiful sugar white sand beaches."
Funding from oil spill
Manatee County has not received any monies resulting from the criminal, civil and other claims against BP and others found responsible for the spill, Hunsicker said, and any exact amounts will depend on any final judgements and appeals.
"We have to hold on to the possibility that the appeals could add a significant amount of time before the money is available and/or reduce the ultimate fines established through judicial appeals," Hunsicker said.
But that hasn't stopped the county from implementing protective measures. For example, the county will use funding from grants and other sources for the Robinson Preserve expansion, which is set to start next month.
"We have to plan properly for projects and make decisions which projects can be held for a long period of time before they can be begun ,and which projects need to move forward without these resources because they are singularly important for our area," he said.
Monies the county could get through the Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities and Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast Act of 2012 include $1.75 million for the restoration of Robinson Preserve and an additional $900,000, which is determined based on a weighted formula of average population, distance to Deepwater Horizon and average tax collections per capita.
The funds are to be used to "restore areas that weren't necessarily damaged but available to fuel the next generation of recovery," Hunsicker said.
Many of the businesses that submitted claims have been paid.
Greg Green, a Manatee County CPA who processed about 50 claims for clients after the spill, said not all of the claims have been completely acted on since BP keeps appealing and delaying payments.
"They affect some businesses at least into I-75 and east of 75," Green said.
Anna Maria Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring Program received grant money from the oil spill through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
Suzi Fox, director of the Anna Maria program, said they received about $100,000 for turtles killed in the spill.
"There were turtles that were actually killed in the oil spill and they had to pay for their lives," Fox said.
The grant money was used for things such as sea turtle friendly light bulbs, shades on windows and turtle friendly window film, Fox said.
"We are the poster child for the first round of grants," Fox said. "This just changed everything about sea turtle conservation on Anna Maria Island, the grant money that came in after the Gulf oil spill."
Looking to Manatee's neighbors to the north along the Panhandle and other areas directly affected by the oil spill, Hunsicker said there were lessons learned.
"Five years later, we have learned lessons from the hardships experienced by our Florida neighbors to the north in the Panhandle and the coastal states immediately affected by the spill," he said.
Through organizations such as the Gulf Coast Restoration Council, funds will be made available to places throughout the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas without respect to geographic location, Hunsicker said.
"Every location in these estuaries contributes to diversity and abundance and recovery for wherever that damage may occur," Hunsicker said. "We are taking our coast line and returning those to natural habitats in an attempt to maintain the balance in our landscape between places for natural habitat, places we live and worship, places where we work and commute and places where we grow food. If we work to keep that recipe in balance, we will always have a good outcome."
Audubon Florida is calling on Florida to create a formal Gulf Restoration Plan, which is something they've been rallying for and that is especially important five years later, Wraithmell said.
"There are tremendous opportunities for Florida and the Gulf as a whole," she said. "The question is making the most of it. Now is the time, and it is really important that people get involved."
Claire Aronson, Manatee County reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7024 or at caronson@bradenton.com. Follow her on Twitter @Claire_Aronson.
This story was originally published April 19, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "BP OIL SPILL | 5 years later: With no oil touching Manatee County, explosion effects still felt in county."