Pensacola beach oil clean-up from a workers view.
As a Pensacola, Florida resident, this beach oil mess has affected me quite a bit. As I stated in my About Me page, I have been living here for over forty years and spent a lot of my teen years on the beach with my friends.
I remember surfing and just hanging out. There was a dune called the Sugar Bowl located on the east side of the beach area where we used to go for some late night parties. Back then there wasn't much on the beach, no hotels, motels, rides, parking lots everywhere. Just the pier, the Casino, the Seven 11 on the sound side, a few houses on Via DeLuna, and a whole lotta sand.
With all this beach oil spill clean-up going on, I am really trying to decide which is worse, the oil on the beach or the commercialization of every square foot. The visitors come to the beach for a week or so now and then, walk in the sand, swim in the gulf, then head back home. When I go to the beach now I see signs everywhere that say " No Tresspassing, Owners and Guests Only." I remember when the only buildings on the beach were a Seven-11, the Casino, the pier, and a few houses on the east side. But, all can still enjoy the beach. As far as I'm concerned, all are welcome and should come visit anytime they feel like it. This entire website is dedicated to that very reason.
This beach oil spill page has been created to tell my story from a clean-up worker's perspective. I'm a safety observer on Pensacola Beach, presently, making sure the crews are following the rules set down by the EPA, OSHA, BP, and the various contractors hired to do the cleaning. The workers are on a seven day work week, 12 hours a day. Due to the heat and direct sunlight, we are restricted to the amount of time we can work between rest periods. The heat index generally stays very high and heat related illness is fairly common.
We have daily morning meetings to keep the workers informed of heat index, illnesses, the results, and prevention. The EMS services are available when needed. As far as the clean-up goes, this is what I see every day. The tar ball on the beach is the workers main concern right now. They pick up the ball and put them in plastic bags until the bags weigh about 15 pounds or so. Workers are allowed to pick up no more than 30 pounds to limit the possibility of back injury.
Before the beach oil spill bags leave the beach, they are placed inside another bag, double bagged, due to the handling down the line. The beach has many front-end loaders constantly moving along. They are collecting the bags to be taken to the staging areas where they are placed in dumpsters. These are then picked up to be taken somewhere that, as of yet, I haven't seen. From what I'm told, the sand is to cleaned and returned to the beach. I don't know which beach, but I assume Pensacola Beach.
There has been many occasions when tourists have approached the workers and chewed them out because of the mess. The workers are no more to blame than the tourists themselves. I've decided that if I am approached this way, I will ask them when are they going to join the beach oil clean-up effort. As for myself, I appreciate the long hours and great effort put forth by these workers, whom for the most part, are away from home and family. I am also working 12 to 15 hours a day on this, and will update this page as often as I can. When I get home in the evenings, all I want to do is sleep. I will add pictures and their descriptions as often as I can. Well, it's July 5,2010 and I'm off to the beach for another 12 hours in the sun. July 6 and 7 we had a lot of rain, not much work was done. Lightning was present on the 6th and had the workers off the beach all day. On the 7th, the crews returned to work around 9:30.
The Blue Angels had a big show on the 10th of July. This caused a huge upset in the spill clean-up effort. On the 8th, all workers had to vacate the beaches by noon. They were all rescheduled to return at midnight and work 'til 8am, myself included. This would be for the morning of the 9th and 10th. This really caused a lot of problems for the workers and logistically. There was a lot of trouble suppling the workers with the tools they needed. Well, anyway, I am on my rotation off for the next 3 days.
Well, I had my three day rotation ( days off ) on July 11, 12, & 13. When I returned to work most of the workers weren't present. Apparently, with the small number of tar balls being seen by the EPA, many were put on shorter work weeks. Anyway, the beaches were really statring to look good. There has been an increase in the number of beachgoers and tourists. On the 15th I saw a lady in the beach ball parking lot yelling out to people that the food being sold at the beach was contaminated with oil, how ridiculous can some folks be. All this hype about the air reeking of oil isn't true. I'm in it everyday and haven't smelled anything remotely like that. The beach oil spill here is being handled very well as I see it. From July 14 - 19 Pensacola Beach has looked very good and has seen a lot of visitors. Most of the workers have been concentrated in the Gulf Islands National Seashore. I haven't been assigned that area so I haven't seen it yet. Fort Pickens has had a lot of clean-up also but has had diminishing numbers of workers going there each day. The workers have been told not to remove the seaweed on the beach due to it's part in the food chain. The beach oil clean-up is going well in spite of the medis statements to the contrary. If you happen to go to the beach, please do the same. I hope to see you all there some day soon. As we work on the beach oil effort, we are constantly visited by various agencies as they travel the beach to check on things. One of these is the Coast Guard, which is in charge of the entire clean up effort. On the afternoon of the 20th as I was observing the workers removing tar balls, I saw a young man walking towards our tent. As he came closer, I knew it was one of the Coast Guard guys that keep a watch on the beaches. He was wearing shorts, barefoot with a t-shirt. He came over to us and I asked if he was off today. He said he was, and even though he spent all his working days on the beach he wanted to spent his off day there too. We talked a couple of minutes about whatever, then I asked if he had been swimming. He said he had been body surfing and had a great time. I told him I did that when a teenager. Anyway, if this water is so toxic and nothing more than a chemical brewing vat, why would he be in it? I am out there every day helping with the clean-up. The beaches look great, the air smells like it has always smelled, and the water looks fantastic. The beach oil clean-up is going well.
I have read a lot of comments in the various media reports of the workers going to the beach and just sitting around not getting anything done. I believe these statements are being made by those who don't have the facts and basically don't care what the facts are. Let me say this based on the facts, all the work done on the beach oil clean-up is being controlled by the Coast Guard. They make all the work rules based on the heat index. There are spotters who travel the beach looking for areas where the workers should be deployed the following day. Enough on that subject, we have been off on July 24 and 25 due to Bonnie. The word out is that the EPA is very pleased and impressed with the beach oil clean-up. The beaches are looking great, so much so that there are large scale lay-offs going on now. The ones who aren't in the lay-off are given extended days off, without pay of course. I know many say that BP and the county are covering the oil with sand, well, here is what I have seen. In the afternoons when I am leaving the beach, the wind is usually up a bit. The beach sand is blown about much the same as desert sand, and this covers many things such as footprints, etc. I haven't seen any sand being trucked in and used to cover anything out there.
July 29 was the first green flag day since I've been working here, about six weeks. The water was absolutely beautiful.
Workers are continually being layed off or put on short work weeks. I keep reading articles from people who say they are finding oil or tarballs in the sea weed just a few feet from the workers. They even walk up to the workers to point to something they see and expect the workers to stop to go see about it. These guys aren't working for the public. They have been given direction for that days priority work. So, please don't bother them. The beach oil clean-up is going well. It's August 15 now and we just had a storm go through. It doesn't look as though there has been much affect on the beach oil. I haven't seen any oil wash up. The crews are looking a little deeper now in the sand for tar balls. I would like to say once more that in the past two months I haven't seen any "double red flags" on P'cola beach. The water has been clear as ever and the beach looks great. On Wednesday, the 18th of August, there was a single red flag by the lifeguards. It was due to the high surf and bad rip currents.
In case any of you are wondering where I am getting all this news of "double red flags" and "huge oil slicks" washing ashore as well as "hundreds of people getting sick" from the smell, well I check this stuff out on Google Alerts and type Pensacola in the search box. The posts there are usually pictures and videos from weeks ago when things were at their worse. The beach oil clean-up is going really well.
Well, it may be awhile before I can report on the beach conditions. I have been re-deployed to Venice, La. for an undetermined period. I will resume reporting on the beach as soon as I can. Disclaimer
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