Originally published by The Mobile Press Register
Friday, August 31, 2007
By DAVID FERRARAStaff Reporter
SPANISH FORT -- Baldwin County could receive more than $20 million in federal aid for conservation projects -- including $4 million to help repair a Gulf Shores fishing pier -- while only half that figure was tabbed for projects in Mobile County, conservation officials revealed Thursday night.
None of the roughly $51 million that Alabama and its two coastal counties stand to reap from the Coast Impact Assistance Program was allotted to replenish the east end of Dauphin Island, even though the funds stem from federal compensation on offshore oil and gas drilling, and rigs are visible from island porches.
That irked some Dauphin Island residents, including council members and Mayor Jeff Collier, at a Thursday night forum where a draft of projects was made public. One by one, they complained at the hour-long meeting on the Causeway inside Five Rivers, Alabama's Delta Resource Center, that their roughly $3.3 million request was ignored.
"No other coastal community in this area that is more impacted by the oil and gas industry than Dauphin Island," Collier said. "We need to be looked at very seriously -- more so than we have been throughout the years."
The State Lands Division of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is managing the state's share of the federal money, and has been reviewing project applications.
State Lands Division Director Jim Griggs could not say why the beach nourishment project was not included in the plans.
Dauphin Island Sea Lab Director George Crozier called the concerns from residents "valid."
He added, "The long-term commitment of coastal impact should be really important to the state. It is a tremendous asset."
Baldwin County Commissioner Frank Burt, in the audience of about 40, praised the proposed use of money toward restoration of a 20-foot-wide, 1,500-foot-long fishing pier at Gulf State Park. The entire project could cost upwards of $15 million, State Lands officials have said.
Hurricane Ivan washed away a similar, yet much shorter pier in 2004.
"We lost a great resource for Baldwin County," Burt said. "I fully support that portion of the plan."
The Alabama Department of Conservation cataloged each of the 99 projects in a nearly 300-page notebook. Will Brantley, State Lands manager, couched the details as a "preliminary draft plan."
Based on each state's oil and gas production, the federal program will distribute the money through the next two years -- fiscal years 2007 and 2008.
Officials will take comments on the plan until Oct. 1, Brantley said, and present a final draft to Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that will distribute the money.
The funding method was created in 2005 as part of the energy policy adopted that year. Previously, the oil and gas royalties would go into the federal treasury.
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1 comment:
As a resident of Dauphin Island, I have experienced coastal regions all over the USA and abroad. I know how rare and fragile but utterly necessary a barrier island like DI is to the maritime industry of the region it protects.
Anyone visiting DI can immediately SEE that this place is directly impacted on a daily basis by the oil and gas industry. From offshore/inshore platforms, crew boats and helicopters we have a constant reminder of the sacrifice DI has made to encourage energy production which benefits all of Alabama and the USA.
The hidden costs are the lower property values we have over Baldwin county (which has NO drilling), the pipelines crossing DI which have helped weaken our substrate. We also have been hugely impacted by federal decisions to cut off the sand conveyor which for eons kept DI naturally replenished with protective beaches and dunes.
The decades of dollar driven decisions by the US Army Corp of Engineers to dredge the Mobile ship channel could be forgiven if the extra time had been expended to ensure the sand lost to DI by this practice was restored.
Instead of simply doing what they are now under court order to do they took this invaluable resource and dumped it in a spoil area offshore where it perform no national service.
Without rebuilding our coastline with the oil and gas industry funds Alabama and Mobile County has blatantly said we do not care about protecting the valuable Intra Coastal Waterway, Mobile Bay, the refineries in our flood plain, Mobile' waterfront industries, access to Alabama business to the deep water port (ThyssenKrupp, Hyundai, Austell, etc). With out these barrier islands all of these businesses and infrastructure are exponentially more vulnerable to the next storms which will hit our region.
It is a crime against the citizens of this county and all of this state for such a travesty to stand.
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