Gov. Rick Scott’s recent announcement that BP had agreed to cover the cost of installing three artificial reefs in Okaloosa County has brought an eagerly anticipated project one step closer to reality.
All county officials are waiting for now — as they have for more than a year — is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to sign off on the near-shore reef permits.
Scott announced last week that $58 million in restoration projects funding had been proposed by trustees for the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA).
The approval of 12 NRDA projects “represent a critical step forward in recovering from the natural resource and recreational losses that resulted from the BP oil spill” off Louisiana in 2010, Scott said.
While the bulk of the NRDA funds — “about 80 percent,” according to Okaloosa County Commissioner Dave Parisot — went to Escambia County, one pot of $11.4 million will be divvied up between Escambia, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Walton and Bay counties for artificial reef construction and restoration.
Scott Henson, Okaloosa County’s artificial reef program manager, said “just over $1.2 million” will come to the county.
That should be enough to pay to move about 11 million pounds of materials to three sites mapped out for the three reefs, Henson said.
The reefs, already approved by the Okaloosa County Commission, would consist of nine structures dropped into an area a half-mile square.
See a map of the proposed layout. >>
See a profile of the proposed reef site. >>
See a full scale map of the site. >>
About 9 million pounds of rocks to be used for the reefs have been donated by the Air Force, Henson said.
Huge blocks of “high percentage limestone, very good reef building material” once used at Eglin Air Force Base for munitions evaluation has been given to the county, Henson said.
The reefs will be built in the Gulf of Mexico about 3 miles off the western end of Okaloosa Island, about 2 miles off Henderson Beach State Park in Destin and at a site in Choctawhatchee Bay, Henson said.
That is, if the Corps of Engineers ever gets around to issuing the permits.
“We should have the permits soon. The Corps has been sitting on them for over a year,” Henson said. “They started giving me signals we’d get them very soon about 10 months ago.”
Steve Andrews, project manager for the Corps of Engineers, said at an artificial reef seminar in February that the agency’s permitting process takes time because applications must be reviewed by several federal agencies.
“We have a left and right, up and down type coordination,” Andrews said. “This takes time.”
Corps spokeswoman Nancy Sticht said Friday the last her office knew of Okaloosa’s permit application was that it had been returned to Henson’s office.
“The project manager had requested further information from the applicants,” she said.
Henson said the request for more information arrived about a week ago. The information was collected and returned to the Corps the following day.
While the Corps reviews Okaloosa’s application, the NRDA funding needed to move the reef material to the water won’t be approved until after the NRDA trustees allow public comment on its 12 most recently approved proposals.
Henson said that should take three to four months.
He said he’s quite confident there will be no great quarrel about putting down reefs on the nearly barren bottoms of the Gulf and Choctawhatchee Bay.
“It’s already been pretty well vetted by everybody and their brother,” he said. “We’ve got 85 percent favorable polling scores. We’re confident the reefs will go through.”
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.