June 28, 2010

Kautz: "This is a Major National Disaster and the American People Demand that Our Response be Equal to It."

U.S. mayors traveled from their cities in California, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts to join colleagues from cities all along the Gulf Coast for The U.S. Conference of Mayors emergency meeting on the catastrophic BP oil well disaster, held June 21 in New Orleans. Conference President Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth B. Kautz, Second Vice President Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and Conference of Mayors CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran led a delegation of more than a dozen mayors on the mission to New Orleans, to stand in solidarity with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the mayors of the Gulf region affected by the out-of-control well and to urge Washington to accept the recommendations on response and recovery adopted one week earlier at the 78th Annual Meeting of the Conference of Mayors in Oklahoma City.

Joining Kautz, Nutter, and Landrieu in the emergency meeting were mayors of Long Beach and Santa Barbara, CA: Houston and Denton, TX; Baton Rouge, Lafitte, and Lake Charles, LA; Biloxi and Prentiss, MS; Mobile, AL; Clearwater and Fort Myers, FL; and Everett, MA, and officials of the state municipal leagues of Mississippi and Florida.

Hosted and orchestrated by Landrieu, the meeting brought the mayors to his city's historic Roosevelt Hotel for an early-morning briefing on the day's agenda prior to boarding a bus for a trip south to Lafitte in Jefferson Parish. There, Mayor Tim Kerner would meet the delegation at the Emergency Operations Center established there by the Coast Guard following the oil well explosion and rupture that Landrieu frequently describes as "a nightmare that keeps recurring."

On the bus to Lafitte, Landrieu summarized for the mayors the three most basic challenges now confronting BP and Washington (DC): "Close the hole. Stop oil from reaching the shore. Compensate those affected."

The mayors were briefed during the trip by the Executive Director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board Ewell Smith on the impact of the BP oil disaster on the State's seafood industry — an industry which relates to one in every 70 jobs in Louisiana and has an estimated $2.4 billion impact on the economy. With so many of the seafood industry jobs being lost in companies which have been family-owned and operated for generations, Smith explained, the very culture of the Louisiana Gulf Coast is being affected by the disaster.

Both Landrieu and Smith stressed the damage being done to the seafood industry and the local economy by inaccurate perceptions of the availability and safety of Gulf seafood being projected outside the region, and the need to correct them.

A second briefing en route to Lafitte by Greater New Orleans, Inc. CEO Michael Hecht provided details on the economic impact of the runaway well. Hecht summarized for the mayors a recent GNO analysis showing that, the oil drilling moratorium aside, fisheries will likely be the most acutely impacted sector, with tourism also significantly impacted. Total output of Louisiana fisheries is estimated to be as high as $3.8 billion per year; lost output due to the oil spill could be as high as $3.3 billion. Yearly lost output from tourism, including hunting, fishing, and ecotourism, could reach $1.7 billion, according to GNO.

At the Senior Center in Lafitte, which has been converted to a Coast Guard emergency operations center, the mayors were briefed by the Incident Commander there, Captain Roger Laferriere and, BP Incident Command Director Brian Bower on the Deepwater Horizon well explosion, the scope of the contamination of the area's waters and marshes, and efforts to stop the flow of oil, contain it, and remove it. Among the points covered in Laferriere's briefing:

• Oil is being siphoned out of the well through a "lower marine riser package" that is collecting an estimated 15,000 barrels, or 630,000 gallons, per day.

• A vessel originally used for the recent unsuccessful "top kill" operation has been re-outfitted for use as a second siphoning system.

• Subsea oil dispersant is being applied at the wellhead on an ongoing basis.

• Relief wells are being drilled and are scheduled to be completed by August. All source control operations are controlled out of Houston.

In Louisiana, Laferriere said, 239 miles of shoreline have been affected; more than 20 million gallons of oily water have been recovered; over 6.3 million gallons of oil have been removed through 259 burns; more than 850,000 gallons of surface dispersant have been applied; and more than 10,600 personnel have been involved in the cleanup.

The briefing prepared the mayors for what they would be seeing on the boat tour of the area waters which followed, and they were advised that more detailed information was available on the official Web site of the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command, www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com.

At Lafitte's boat dock, a short distance from the Coast Guard's operations center, the mayors donned life vests prior to boarding a group of boats assembled by Kerner — among these, rescue boats provided by Lafitte and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. The boats also carried other officials participating in the emergency meeting and a large press contingent.

An early stop on the tour was at a "jackup barge" that serves as a fixed platform for equipment, boats, and personnel involved in the oil recovery efforts in the area. The stop was arranged by Landrieu and Kerner to give the other mayors an opportunity to talk with fishermen affected by the contaminated water who are now involved in the containment and cleanup effort. The boats then proceeded to Bay Jimmy near Grand Isle to observe cleanup operations and see firsthand the damage that has been done to marshes there and in numerous other marsh areas along the coast. Along the way the group observed "skimmers" that remove oil from the water, shrimp boats piled high with white plastic bags filled with oil'soaked material, and fan-driven "air boats" which can operate in marsh areas not accessible by workers in conventional boats.

Back on the Lafitte dock following three hours on the water, the group returned to New Orleans for a press conference and seafood lunch at the New Orleans landmark Bon Ton Café. Gathered around a podium near the center of the restaurant, several members of the mayors- group reacted to what they had seen and heard that day. In her press statement, Kautz recalled a 2005 trip to New Orleans by then-Conference President Beverly O-Neill of Long Beach and Cochran following Hurricane Katrina — a reflection on the role the organization has played in helping cities such as New Orleans respond to disasters. "This is our history," Kautz said. "It's who we are and what we are."

Kautz applauded Landrieu's leadership during both the Katrina and BP oil crises. "Throughout this day, he has helped us to better understand the true impact of the oil well disaster on the people, the environment, and the culture here, and he has made us even more determined to put the full force of our organization behind the national effort to do what must be done for all the cities and towns that have been, and will be, affected," she said.

Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway said that, while his 26 miles of white sand beaches had so far been blessed with no tar balls, the seafood industry had been hard hit, with the number of shrimp boats dropping from 230 last year to 67 now, and seafood restaurant income dropping 30 percent.

Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard said his city was fighting many battles triggered by the disaster. The loss of deals by realtors, the loss of a large convention to Savannah, and the loss of income by the cruising industry were among the impacts being felt, Hibbard said.

"In cities from Texas to Florida, local governments and citizens are already paying dearly for the BP oil spill, and we know that this disaster could very well reach the shores of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia in the not-too-distant future," Kautz told reporters. "This is a major national disaster and the American people demand that our response be equal to it."

Much of the discussion during the mayors- emergency meeting focused on the additional damage to the Gulf Coast economy caused by the six-month oil and gas drilling moratorium that had been imposed by the Interior Department following the BP well blowout — primarily how it was affecting a region already reeling from the effects of sharp reductions in seafood harvesting. (GNO's assessment of the moratorium puts potential job losses in Louisiana, under conservative assumptions, as high as 22,000. Four-year losses of state and parish tax revenue could reach more than $700 million, according to GNO, and drilling royalty losses could reach more than $40 million. Loss of tolls on the local Highway 1 alone could add more than $39 billion to the overall economic loss in the region.)

A number of mayors spoke in opposition to the blanket moratorium, citing the threat to the economy it posed. "We don-t ground the airlines when one airplane crashes," said Houston Mayor Annise Parker, where headquarters of several oil and gas companies are located. "We figure out why the plane crashed." Parker stressed the importance of both the fishing and oil and gas industries to the local economy, and expressed concern that, with the fishing industry in distress, the drilling moratorium was taking away yet another source of income from area families.

In the press conference, Kautz also raised another issue which had been discussed among the mayors that day: The need to accelerate the payment of offshore oil and gas revenues to the four energy-producing Gulf states for coastal protection and restoration. The Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, sponsored by Louisiana's Senator Mary Landrieu and former New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, provides for the sharing of these revenues to begin in 2017. New legislation proposed by Landrieu would allow funds from new leases off the Gulf Coast to be shared immediately. GNO has estimated that revenues of $158,553,000 could be generated by 20 oil rigs if revenue sharing were to be moved up to 2011 — revenues it says that could be used for coastal restoration, hurricane protection, disaster readiness, community assistance, and development of Southeast Louisiana as global hub of sustainable research and development.

"We-re also here today to stand with Mayor Landrieu in support of Senator Mary Landrieu's ‘fair share- legislation," said Kautz. "Action on this is long overdue. We ask Congress and the administration to support this needed legislation without delay."

Long Beach (CA) Mayor Bob Foster, a Conference of Mayors Trustee, said he had learned during the New Orleans event how mayors could help the region by encouraging use of products from the Gulf, encouraging residents to visit the area, and supporting the acceleration of the "fair share" payments to the Gulf states.

The BP oil disaster was a major item of discussion during the Conference of Mayors- 78th Annual Meeting, held June 11-15 in Oklahoma City. Exactly one week before the New Orleans meeting, the mayors in Oklahoma City passed, on a unanimous vote, a resolution calling for swift federal action on the disaster. The key points covered in that resolution were summarized for reporters in the restaurant by Kautz:

"First, we call on President Obama to initiate emergency assessments by key federal departments and agencies in order to provide timely initiatives, policies, and actions that will mitigate the devastation wrought by the oil spill and move quickly to rebuild the affected ecosystems and economies.

"Second, we urge the President to establish a special task force of senior federal officials from key agencies, mayors, and other local elected officials from areas that have been or are likely to be affected by this disaster. The task force would provide timely and updated information on mitigation efforts, and develop strategies to minimize contamination and accelerate recovery following containment of the spill.

"Third, we urge the President to appoint a Gulf Oil Disaster commander to direct the actions of all federal agencies involved in mitigating and recovering from the disaster, to alleviate jurisdictional issues, and to assure a multi-faceted, coordinated, and timely response.

"Fourth, we urge the President to initiate relief measures, including an Infrastructure Bank, to facilitate the rapid revival of affected local and regional economies and specialized worker retraining initiatives.

"Fifth, we call on Congress to ensure that lead federal agencies are coordinating closely with cities and other local governments in all phases of this national response.

"And finally, the nation's mayors urge Congress to provide additional resources in a timely and consistent manner to fund local cleanup efforts, to offset economic losses, and to meet related financial needs of local governments affected by the disaster."

For both the Conference of Mayors and Landrieu, an important goal of the New Orleans emergency meeting was to call national attention to the fact that seafood currently being harvested from Gulf waters is available, safe, and being enjoyed in restaurants throughout the area. This was easily accomplished at the Bon Ton Café, where reporters there for the press conference saw the mayors leave the podium to be served what are considered by New Orleans residents to be among the best seafood dishes prepared in the city. "We want people to know that they can still come to this region for vacation and continue to enjoy the local cuisine," said Kautz.