Lot of Talk, Little Action in Coastal Oil Spill Cleanup

WKRG.com News

More frustration on the gulf coast tonight as we have few answers about what coastal communities see as major issues in their recovery from the BP oil spill. There were a lot of high hopes for a work session but in the end it seems like there are only more frustrations.

Part of a tar mat taken out of the surf of West Beach lies on the front table of the council chambers in Orange Beach. It is what so many are concerned with along the gulf coast.

Federal incident commander and Coast Guard Captain James Hanzalik has seen it before. "I've been doing oil spills for 25 years. It's not surprising that you may see something like this especially the large volume of oil that was spilled. It's historic."

It's one of the issues that state and local leaders from Alabama and Florida hoped would be addressed during a working session with Coast Guard and BP officials according to Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon. "Tar mats, they looked at me like a deer in the headlights. They did not acknowledge there was any tar mats out there. They told me to call them if I found one."

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