NAS Pensacola Personnel Training for Oil Cleanup

By Airman Brinn Hefron, Naval Air Station Pensacola

May 3, 2010 - NAS PENSACOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- Sailors and Marines -- both officers and enlisted -- from Naval Air Station Pensacola have come together to prepare to clean up the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico April 20.

What was strictly a British Petroleum, its subcontractors and U.S. Coast Guard endeavor has now developed to include NASP-based military members if oil makes landfall on the base's shores.

"Fifty military personnel every two days are being trained to clean up beaches; that's going to be an ongoing process until we have enough people. We are not sure how many we will need, so we're training as many as we can," said Burt Fenters, emergency manager on board NASP.

The maximum class size has been established as 50 students, who began training Monday. These 50 students will finish the training May 5 at which point another class of 50 students will begin the training. These students are comprised of military personnel from various tenant school commands on NASP who are waiting to begin rate training.

"We're preparing to train a pool of people that can potentially perform or assist in beach cleanup," said Lt. Michael Frost, port operations officer on board NASP.

As of Monday, the oil spill was located between 50 and 100 miles southwest of the Pensacola, although with currents and winds the distance may change daily.

The class was taught by Amy Lee, an environmental trainer from Navy Facilities Southeast at NAS Jacksonville. In addition to that, the public works environmental department on board NAS Pensacola is trying to help and start another class, said Fenters.

The environmental department is removing other debris from the beaches on NASP. "The public works department is now cleaning the beaches on our entire 17 miles of shoreline," said Mark Gibson, Navy natural resources manager on board NASP. "This is important so that if we do have to clean up oil damage, at least we won't have lots of other contaminated debris."