Ala. volunteer fire chief emerges as hero in Gulf oil spill

Greenwire

AP Photo/Dave Martin Fish River Marlow Fire Dept. members anchor oil containment booms at the mouth of Weeks Bay in Magnolia Springs, Ala., Sunday.

MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, Ala. — James Hinton, an Alabama volunteer fire chief, has emerged as a leader in the homegrown effort to fight the spreading oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In the first week of May, Hinton set up a meeting in Magnolia Springs, a town with fewer than 1,000 residents. He rallied his neighbors to protect Weeks Bay, an estuary off Mobile Bay that is home to 19 federally protected species. The townspeople were not satisfied with the unified command plan for the bay, which would lay down boom along the bay's mouth, because tidal currents could lead to oil splashing over the boom and settling in the water.

Hinton proposed a separate solution: Set up a wall of barges to block the current, then lay five layers of boom behind it. The town immediately bought the boom with state funding and laid it down. They need approval from unified command to seal the bay off entirely, but say they will move forward if any oil comes near, with or without the OK.

"We're not biologists or engineers or scientists," Hinton said. "We took common sense and what we knew about the water from living here. I'm pretty proud of our little plan."

Hinton said the biggest problem has been dealing with BP PLC and trying to navigate the bureaucracy of unified command, but he vowed to do what he could to prevent damage to the marshes (John Leland, New York Times, June 7).

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