HERNANDO COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

SITUATION UPDATE REGARDING OIL-SPILL IN THE GULF

Hernando County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Management continues to work closely with the US Coast Guard, the State of Florida and BP to ensure that Hernando County’s coastline has every protection possible in the event that our area becomes affected by the oil spill in the Gulf.

While many protective steps and commitments have been agreed upon, it is our position that BP is fully responsible for this crisis and that they should be held accountable to provide complete protection for our coastline and for the cost of any actions taken to accomplish this level of protection.

A number of areas along our coast have already been identified and approved for “booming”, however, our position is that all of our coastline deserves protection.  We will continue to aggressively pursue measures to accomplish complete protection for Hernando County’s coastline.

Plan Components and Action by the Sheriff’s Office Emergency Management:

• Continuing to monitor and participate in daily conference calls on event status
• Reviewed the Area Contingency Plan and provided an expanded protection strategy to the US Coast Guard St. Pete Sector for environmentally sensitive areas along Hernando County’s coastline
• Developed a Damage Assessment Plan
• Developed a tactical operations plan in conjunction with Hernando County Hazardous Materials Team
• Media Plan – currently under revision
• Volunteer Coordination Plan – adopted the Volunteer Coordination and Training Plan approved by the Sector St. Petersburg Coast Guard Unified Command

Next Steps:

• Coordinate Coastal Baseline Water and Soil Sampling with Florida Division of Environmental Protection
• Enhancements to Communications Plan
• Schedule Local Volunteer Training when it becomes available in our jurisdiction
• Enhance existing plans to address the protection of additional areas presently not included in the Area Contingency Plan.  This specifically refers to areas that are environmentally important to the citizens of Hernando County but where no protection strategy exists.  It is our expectation that as the responsible party, BP should be held accountable and we will aggressively pursue any and all options to develop a plan to protect these areas

 The Public Information Line  (352) 754-4111 is also updated with the latest information.