UPDATE: Here’s the print version of the story.

Some scribbles in my notebook after an interesting afternoon in the State Emergency Operations Center, where Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, was briefed on the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf.

1.) Let’s start by pointing out that politically this is a major I-told-you-so-moment for Atwater, who was the only Republican with a nice big state Capitol office who didn’t want to lift the state ban on oil drilling.

If it wasn’t for Atwater fighting considerable pressure, even from Gov. Charlie Crist, it’s very reasonable to think a bill to allow drilling within 10 miles of the coast would have been approved by the Republican-controlled legislature this year or even signed into law by Crist at this time last year.

2.) So, sure, his skepticism over the oil industry safety claims were pretty much exactly on target. And yeah, this is the same guy who justified a budget line item for public libraries with a story about how, as a boy, he rode his bike to check out a Johnny Unitas biography over and over again.

But make no mistake: He’s no angel. Actually, he’s got a bit of a potty mouth.

3.) An hour into a somewhat perplexing briefing (more on that in a minute) a frustrated Atwater demanded to know how BP could “friggin’ build a platform” capable of diving 5,000 feet below sea level and drilling another 13,000 feet into the ground, but couldn’t figure out how to “fill the hole” where tens of thousands of gallons of oil was shooting into the Gulf of Mexico every day.

Here’s the audio of the quote. For a little context, we left in BP’s Kathy Randall explaining to Atwater how tough it was to be a major oil company with a historic oil spill on its hands.

4.) Atwater’s larger point was, essentially, that spending $25 million on a national advertising campaign promoting the state’s unpolluted beaches (Really. And no threats of hurricanes yet, either. We swear!) might not attain the desired results if BP can’t clamp leaks like the one in the video to the left. And this one, too.

5.) But the message being drilled into Atwater by BP and the VISIT Florida board member Carol Dover was there has been no impact to state waters: Panhandle beaches are sugar white, Tampa Bay charter boats are booking fishing trips, the Conch Republic is still insanely beautiful.

6.) And here’s where it gets interesting -– that same message was echoed by David Halstead, the state’s top emergency manager, and Doug Darling, the chief of staff at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

The state was prepared for Exxon Valdez-type consequences, but Floridians probably won’t ever see oil lapping up on their beaches, they said. It might never get worse than a few tar balls washing ashore, which was already fairly common before the spill.

7.) Halstead said it could take two weeks for oil sheen to float down to the Keys: “If we look at two weeks in the Florida sun, most of that is going to be evaporated. There is a possibility you’ll see very little of any sheen ever even make it down all the way to the Keys.”

Darling said there is no immediate risk to Florida’s commercial fishing industry (“We’re fighting rumor control.”) and that an oil sheen will have minimal environmental impact:

“If dolphins or manatees swim through it and come up to surface for air, they’re going to get a slight coating. But the fish swimming at 100 feet are not affected by it all.”

8.) Atwater was somewhat stunned by the picture they painted, but there was no reason to doubt them. Halstead is entrusted with one of the most important arms of state government and Darling is the top advisor of one of Florida’s most respected agency heads.

But both men are emerging from their own sticky situations.

Darling resigned in 2008 as the head of the state Division of Accounting and Auditing in the wake of an audit that showed a lack of internal controls for handling billions of dollars in public funds.

Halstead was the survivor in a bizarre ousting of his predecessor, former Division of Emergency Management Director Ruben Almaguer, who initially refused to resign and later accused Halstead of orchestrating his demise.

9.) Anyway, back to Atwater, who wrapped up the meeting telling BP, “No one is going to forgive anybody for the action that occurred. That’s the reality. There is environmental damage.”

He said BP “owes it to the people” to hire an independent contractor to confirm the amount of oil flooding the Gulf and verify progress is being made.

“I’m not going to lose sight that that thing is still pumping oil and we need to maintain a significant amount of pressure on BP to do their job and get it fixed,” Atwater said.

Tags: David Halstead, Jeff Atwater, oil spill

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 at 10:52 pm and is filed under audio, Gulf of Mexico. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.