A summit Tuesday drew leaders, including a former congressman, from across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. They gathered around a conference table in Orange to discuss plans to improve the water in the Gulf of Mexico with $1.9 billion. The money is coming from fines being paid by British Petroleum for the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The three-hour conference included participants through computers and conference calls. The meeting was in the Orange Police Department’s Danny Gray Community Room.
A few months after the oil spill, Congress created the RESTORE Act. It stands for Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities and Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States Act.
Former U.S. Representative Steve Southerland helped write the act and is now a consultant. He attended the conference and said most of the people participating don’t know each other and what other communities are doing. The meeting was the first step in forming what he called “a water caucus.”
Tim Richardson, a Baltimore attorney who is representing a number of the groups, including the ones in Orange attended. Richardson suggested entities have their governing bodies pass a resolution that reads “Water was the most injured resource from Deepwater Horizon and improving fresh water reaching the Gulf is a vital use of restoration investment.”
The money will be divided between states and then groups will be able to file for grants. In Texas, the grants will go through the General Land Office. Some of the groups already have plans to apply for the grants.
Orange County has a coalition that is trying to get $50 million with most of it designated for a county-wide sanitary sewer system. The Environmental Protection Agency for more than two decades has cited high fecal coliform levels in Adams Bayou and Cow Bayou. Engineer Bill Hughes from the Sabine River Authority, which is part of the local coalition, presented the county plan at the meeting.
The object of the local county-wide plan is to provide clean water to the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. The bayous go into the Sabine River, which flows into Sabine Lake, which is a Gulf estuary.
Orange County isn’t alone in trying to clean up fecal coliform. Representatives from Corpus Christi, the largest Texas city on the Gulf, are hoping to be able to remove thousands of septic tanks still used in that area.
The Orange meeting was the first time all the states and communities were given an opportunity to share information and provide tips.
The penalties and fines in the RESTORE Act are separate from the lawsuit settlements that Orange County Commissioners Court and local city councils approved in the past two weeks. Those settlements are payments for damages caused by the loss of revenues and sales taxes related to the oil spill.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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