Managing the BP settlement


  • August 11, 2015
  • /   Carlton Proctor
  • /   economy

Now is the time to have your say in the RESTORE process.

Escambia County is hosting another in a series of workshops for the Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities, and Revived Economies (RESTORE) project submission portal tonight at 5:30 p.m., Aug. 11 at Gull Point Community Center, 7000 Spanish Trail Road.

If you have questions about how to submit a project for RESTORE funding, or have questions about the process in general, this is your chance.

On the regional stage, next week a committee established by the Legislature to disperse economic damage money from the British oil giant will meet in Destin.

Triumph Gulf Coast Inc. will host its first official meeting on Aug. 18 at the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort from 9 a.m. to noon.

Created by the 2013, Triumph Gulf Coast will oversee the distribution of 75 percent of all funds recovered by the state for economic damages caused to eight Panhandle counties during the 2010 BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The State of Florida recovered $2 billion from BP in a settlement announced in July. Triumph Gulf Coast will manage $1.5 billion of that. The Florida Legislature will distribute the rest.

Triumph Gulf Coast will manage money for economic damages for these eight Florida counties: Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Bay, Gulf, Franklin and Wakulla.

Triumph's five-member board of directors includes Gulf Power CEO Stan Connally, and Pam Dana, a Destin resident and consultant with the Pensacola-based Florida Institute of Human and Machine Cognition.

The nonprofit group's charter calls for it to "establish, hold, invest and administer a trust account at a federally insured institution for the economic recovery, diversification and enhancement of the eight Northwest Florida counties disproportionally affected by the spill."

Triumph Gulf Coast's meetings are open to the public, and its records are subject to the state's Sunshine Law governing open records and public meetings.

The University of West Florida’s Office of Economic Development and Engagement has posted the agenda here.

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