The Backwater Bay Blog!

Marcia Andrews and Dave Tompkins attended a four-hour training session with authorized, OSHA-sanctioned clean-up contractors June 14 at Captiva's South Seas Resort. The very condensed report is that odds are low for any tragic, messy scenes of oil sheens or sludge or mousse on North Captiva. It's due to the distance, currents, weather and sea activity between the gushing BP well and us. Prospects for tar balls in the next few weeks are 10%, but that's what we’ll likely see, eventually and for years to come.

At the training class, after hours of videos about OSHA safety, chemical disaster protocols and big marine operations, we and 120 barrier island volunteers finally learned that tar balls will be our likely hazard. Supposedly, if liquid oil came ashore BP crews would scrape and remove the contaminated sand, but that statement was made referring to Sanibel and Captiva. Here, who knows.

The professionals (with BP-funded contracts) say, we’ll need:

• NO haz mat suits, face masks or respirators

• NO special permits or supervision

• Gloves of Nitrile material, impervious to hydrocarbons. Latex kitchen gloves will quickly fall apart (Home Depot, Lowe‘s)

• Disposal bags, 3 mil contractor bags, oil-resistant type (HD, Lowe’s)

• Pet followers’ pooper scoopers are recommended to minimize bending over

• Disposal will be coordinated by Lee County Emergency Operations