[StBernard] Pilot program will remove hazardous anchors used to secure oil spill boom

[Westley Annis]

Pilot program will remove hazardous anchors used to secure oil spill boom

Published: Tuesday, November 30, 2010, 7:00 AM

 Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, The Times-Picayune 

Thousands of anchors in the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding waters that held
boom in place during the oil spill fight now remain in a state of limbo.
Local fishermen and officials in coastal parishes continue to push for the
anchors' removal and the Coast Guard and BP, fielding input from other
federal, state and local agencies, are currently reviewing a pilot program
to potentially do just that.



Raymond Melerine's 25-foot boat nearly capsized when an anchor left behind
by BP contractors snagged his fishing net and rocked him side to side.

"The anchor tore through the net and just dragged me," said Melerine, 65,
who fishes out of Delacroix in St. Bernard Parish. "The wind was blowing and
one wave came and another, splashing in the boat. It kind of scared me."

Questions remain on how many of the anchors will be removed, and who will
pay for it.

When BP-contracted crews removed oil containment boom, they often just cut
the it free, leaving behind the approximately 3-foot-tall, 75-pound
Danforth-style aluminum anchors that had locked the boom to the seafloor.
Initially BP officials said they believed the anchors posed no hazard.

Many of the anchors still are attached to the ropes that once connected to
the boom. Melerine said he grabbed one such rope, pulled the anchor up and
now has it as a keep-sake in his yard.

While high-end nets can cost up to $3,000, Melerine spends four to five days
making his own and so only spends about $450 a pop. He blames a lack of BP
oversight for the work and money he had to put in for a new net, and for the
fear he now faces of snagging another anchor, possibly leading to worse
damage down the line.

"BP should have made sure the people they had working for them pulled those
anchors along with the boom," he said. "It was easy to get it up as most of
the water around here is only about four-feet deep. I just pulled."

After a few months of wrangling, members of the Unified Command, the
multiagency organization responsible for oil spill response, met last week
and the Coast Guard agreed to support a pilot program that would "only
remove a small number of anchors in a controlled process to evaluate the
program's effectiveness," according to St. Bernard President Craig Taffaro.

Pending potential Corps of Engineers permitting, the program, informally
named the Orphan Anchor Program, could begin in a few weeks, authorities
said.

Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, who sponsored a parish resolution
earlier this month for boom anchor removal, says the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration has agreed to conduct sonar tests to find the
anchors on the seafloor. While BP has coordinates for where boom was laid
out, officials say an exact list of which boom anchors were removed has not
been produced.

Like Melerine, Jefferson Parish President John Young noted that the ropes
coming off the anchors also pose a threat. He said he has received several
photos from area fishermen showing their boats' propellers tangled in the
ropes that come up from the anchors and float to the surface.

And while most say BP should be fiscally responsible for the removal, BP has
not yet agreed to such payments, according to state and local officials.
Currently it appears the National Pollution Fund Center's Oil Spill
Liability Trust Fund will foot the bill.

"What they put into our waters, they should remove," Taffaro said of BP.
"It's the least they could do in the efforts to restore our coast."



Taffaro estimates that there are about 3,500 anchors in St. Bernard waters
alone, and "the notion to just leave them behind is completely negligent."

U.S. Coast Guard Pretty Officer Charles Reinhart at Unified Command in New
Orleans said that in St. Bernard there were about 7,860 boom anchors used
for the Deepwater Horizon response.

"We don't have any figures on how many were lost due to storms or boom
maintenance operations," Reinhart added.

Thousands more are estimated in Jefferson and Plaquemines' waterways,
according to local officials.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permits required to install boom state, "Booms
and appurtenant structures shall be removed and disposed of in an
environmentally acceptable manner, immediately following the completion of
the mission."

The permits also require that within 30 days of receiving a permit, the
permittee provide the corps with a restoration plan to remove the boom.

Yet despite the language within the permits specifically designed for
emergency operations such as oil spills, Ricky Boyett, spokesman for the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans District, said that many booms were
installed without proper permitting.

"There were cases in the early days that booms were placed without permits,"
he said. "The idea was these were temporary structures. The idea was a
permit wasn't required if they were removed."

But because of a lack of permits, determining who is responsible for removal
costs and what entity must regulate compliance becomes murky.

For boom sites that are and were unpermitted, Boyett said the corps likely
will have to issue permits to allow removal of the anchors. That could
further delay the start of the Orphan Anchor Program.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said it's necessary to remove
as many as possible, as soon as possible, before more damage occurs.

"Do I think will we get every one? Absolutely not. But we need to make an
attempt to see where they put them, to make a drag, to try to get some of
them up," he said. "We are at the mercy of BP and the Coast Guard and
hopefully they will remove them before more fishing nets and boats get
damaged, or worse, someone gets hurt by hooking into one of these
foundations and getting thrown overboard causing serious injury."

Benjamin Alexander-Bloch can be reached at bbloch at timespicayune.com or
504.352.2552.

C 2010 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.