Fla.’s RESTORE 3 comment period

A 45-day public comment period – until March 2 – has started to get feedback on Florida’s expenditure plan from RESTORE Act monies following the 2010 BP oil spill. Two of those projects include $12.6M to clean up Bayou Chico in Pensacola, and $12.6M to improve water quality in Santa Rosa Sound. The Gulf Consortium was formed to qualify Florida's 23 Gulf Coast counties for Round #3 of RESTORE funding. Its board’s state expenditure plan is 571 pages of documents detailing 69 projects across 23 counties. The RESTORE Act awards 80 percent of all BP fines related to the oil spill to states affected – Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi - by the spill. The total has been estimated to be $6.6B in final payments by 2031. The money is divided into five rounds. The Gulf Consortium is responsible for equally dividing Florida's Round #3 funds that is estimated at $293.7M. The Santa Rosa Sound project is designed to improve water quality by converting the Soundside and Holley by the Sea communities from septic systems to sewer systems, and relocate the Navarre Beach treatment facility effluent discharge to a 200-acre site on Eglin Air Force Base property. The Pensacola project is designed to remove polluted soil from the bottom of Bayou Chico. Public comments on the projects can be made via Gulf Consortium's website, gulfconsortium.org/comment-page. There are two public comment webinars scheduled for the plans. The first will be from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (CT) on Feb. 1. The second will be from 1-3 p.m. on Feb. 15. People can register for the webinars on the Gulf Consortium's website. (Source: Pensacola News Journal 01/22/18)