Lee County considers lawsuit against BP over oil spill

LEE COUNTY — Lee County will soon decide whether to hire a law firm to sue oil company BP for losses incurred due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, Commissioner Frank Mann reported on Friday.

No oil washed ashore in Lee, but the county has asked the oil company for $669,000 to recoup money spent on an emergency advertising campaign following the disaster.

The advertising campaign was designed to let potential visitors know the county’s beaches were unaffected by the spill, said Tamara Pigott, executive director of the Lee Visitors and Convention Bureau.

“We would not have undertaken that campaign if we had not had the incident,” she said.

BP has notified the county that it does not believe the claim is legitimate, Mann said.

“We need to hire people who are uniquely qualified and have the staff to handle this, then bring action against BP,” Mann told the Lee Tourist Development Council at its monthly meeting. “There’s more than $1 million at stake.”

Mann noted that the county clerk’s office has estimated another $836,000 in lost county revenues from the oil spill.

Filing a lawsuit would not cost the county money, as lawyers would likely agree to take a percentage of the award.

“They get a percentage of whatever we get,” said Mann. “My guess is it could be as high as 30 percent, but as of now BP has told us we won’t get anything.”

Much of the discussion at the TDC meeting centered on beaches:

n Mann reported that a beach renourishment project on Fort Myers Beach is 55 days behind schedule and requires another $660,950 for completion. Commissioners will decide on Tuesday whether to authorize a change order for the project.

Since the county obtained permitting for the project, erosion has taken more than 55,000 cubic yards of sand from the 1.2 mile stretch of beach, said Robert Neal, a project engineer for the county.

Changes in the project’s design also call for another 50,000 cubic yards of sand, he said. With the changes, the project will include dredging and filling up to 420,752 cubic yards of sand.

Mann said he expects the commission to authorize the change order.

“It will run the cost up,” he said. “But we can’t stop this project halfway through.”

Over $500,000 of the additional cost will come from an existing county beach capital improvement fund and a Florida Department of Environmental Protection reimbursement will pay for the remaining $160,000.

n Kathleen Rooker of the Lee County Coastal Advisory Council asked the TDC to consider conducting an economic impact analysis of the county’s beaches.

The study would provide data on beach tourism that would enable the county to apply for federal and state grants more easily and to quantify losses when beaches are damaged by oil spills, toxic waste spills or other disasters, Rooker said.

It would also help county authorities make decisions when it comes to spending tourism tax revenues, she said.

“There is some good data out there, but nothing specific to the economic impact of our beaches,” she said. “This would provide a framework so decision makers can make quantified decisions.”