Walton County plans to save beaches by using hay bales

[Chris]

Carpenter and Walton County officials gave a demonstration to BP and state Department of Environmental Protection Wednesday in Pensacola. The hay will be tested on crude oil. Once approved for use on the spill, BP will pay for the bales of hay.

But Walton County will not wait for approval to put hay to use. The plan came together Tuesday. The bales collected Tuesday were placed on the beaches Wednesday and Barker said the EOC is working with a contractor to secure enough supplies to protect the county’s 26-mile coastline.

Phase two involves laying 50,000 feet of New Green Type 4 silt retention fence, according to the release. Hay will be spread out in front of the silt retention fence to capture the oil.

During the third phase workers will lay concrete jersey walls to protect South Walton's dune lakes, according to the release. The jersey walls will be wrapped with New Green Type 4 silt retention fencing, which will be lined with GeoHay, absorbent, durable, non-biodegradable material that will act as a filter.

“We’re just trying to do something that’s proactive and be able to put some type of protection in place because … nothing has been put in place as of yet. So it looks to me like it’s better than doing nothing,” Barker said. “We’re trying to keep the oil from making it to the beaches. That’s our goal. We don’t want to wait until it gets onshore to deal with it.”

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/oil-28669-release-hay.html

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Interesting.  The small demonstration looks pretty effective.

[Randy]

Sounds like they have a plan. It'll work too and they'll save their beaches for next years spring break. Having the only clean beaches on the redneck riviera will pay for itself next spring. By then they'll have sued the shit outta BP and the settlement in a few years will all be gravy.

[Chris]

According to the article, BP is paying for the materials.  Don't know how they're going to get it out onto the water, but I assume BP will be paying for that, too.  This "waiting for approval" stuff is crap.

[cavegal]

Hope it works.