[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish Oil Spill Branch receives notice to vacate Hopedale Command Center

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro said that the St. Bernard Parish
Branch oil spill operations received a notice today to vacate the Hopedale
Command Center within the next 10 days because BP has failed to pay for land
use and other services the landowner has provided. The notice orders the
base be vacated completely.

 

"We received a notice to vacate Hopedale base from the land owner," Taffaro
said at an evening press conference at the St. Bernard Parish Government
Complex in Chalmette. "This was predicated on lack of payment for services.
The landowner's most prominent expense that has not been paid is fuel costs.
We don't have the final figure. However, the landowner is out several
million dollars and has had to front money to contractors' for services."
St. Bernard Parish Councilman Kenny Henderson was also present at the press
conference. 

 

In addition to not receiving payment for land use, Taffaro said the
landowner has not been compensated for hard costs that he paid for up front,
such as fuel and construction limestone used as part of the base for the
operations. Additionally, the land owner has been paying for the security
detail for oil spill operations, and he is still owed $900,000 for those
payments that were fronted. If payment is not received, security will pull
out by Friday, Sept. 3.

 

Taffaro said similar difficulties exist at other staging areas for oil spill
operations in St. Bernard Parish. "Delacroix is also in a negotiation
stalemate with the landowner. In regards to Shell Beach, an agreement has
been reached but not paid for," he said.

 

"We continue to have impacts of oil. We had a sighting today of oil
impacting the shoreline. We will continue operations and we will not shut
down the branch," Taffaro said. "We are calling on BP to step forward to
make this right. We stand ready as a Parish and Command staff at the
Hopedale Branch to do whatever we need to do. I spoke with Admiral Zukunft
(Federal On-Scene Coordinator) who assured me that St. Bernard would have a
command post and would have operations." 

 

Taffaro said he received word this evening that BP would like to renegotiate
the rental agreement with the landowner at Hopedale. "We are hoping someone
will give us some relief in the next few days," Taffaro said. "The
Operations and Planning Sections are identifying a list of questions we need
answers to in order to facilitate such a move of operations. To move this
magnitude of operation will take an entire week. We are planning to continue
operations, and we will look for an alternative site to operate from."

 

###