More than six years after Alabama secured a multibillion-dollar civil settlement with BP over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the panel responsible for steering hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery money toward local projects is finally closing in on its first round of funding decisions.
The Alabama Gulf Coast Recovery Council, a 10-member body that includes Gov. Kay Ivey, the CEO of the Alabama State Port Authority, the presidents of the Mobile and Baldwin county commissions, and the mayors of Bayou La Batre, Dauphin Island, Fairhope, Gulf Shores, Mobile and Orange Beach, is charged with overseeing roughly $800 million in payments arriving from BP through 2031 as part of the company’s $2.3 billion civil settlement with the state.
That money flows through the 2012 RESTORE Act, the landmark federal law that, for the first time, gave local leaders in a region hit by an environmental disaster direct authority over how recovery funds are spent. The law splits the bulk of BP’s civil settlement into five funding streams known as “buckets.” The recovery council oversees two of them, Buckets 1 and 3, and is responsible for steering that money toward specific projects proposed across Alabama’s coastal counties.
More than 200 projects have been submitted so far by local governments, private organizations and environmental groups, ranging from modest water system upgrades in small communities to sprawling, nine-figure infrastructure proposals. Despite that volume of applications, none of the projects have yet received funding, but council members say that is about to change.
Former U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner, who helped write and pass the RESTORE Act while in Congress, was appointed last fall by Gov. Ivey to serve as her representative on the council. Since then, the group has met monthly and has placed a new emphasis on moving actual dollars out into the region rather than continuing to refine internal rules and procedures.
“The council members have been very anxious for this to move forward,” Bonner said. “Some people from other places, they’ve forgotten we ever had an oil spill, but when I speak to the members of the council, every one of them is ready to put their foot on the gas.”
Bonner said one of his first moves after joining the council was meeting individually with the other nine members, several of whom took office after the RESTORE Act became law and had to be brought up to speed on years of prior discussions. Cities including Bayou La Batre, Fairhope and Mobile have all seen changes in leadership since the legislation passed in 2012.
Despite the turnover, Bonner said he has been encouraged by what he described as a regional mindset taking hold among members, even though unanimous votes on individual projects have been rare.
“The reality is some of these decisions could be made by other mayors and other governors, but hopefully, looking back, this will be judged that the vast majority of these decisions were for the benefit of this entire region,” Bonner said. “If they are, I think the members can be very proud, but if we focus on just our ZIP code or just our city and county line, then we’ve really missed a great opportunity.”
That balancing act is complicated by the fact that some of the proposals on the table are projects local officials have pursued for years. Bonner, a former public official himself, acknowledged there are naturally things “you want to get done on your watch.”
Among the highest-profile proposals is a roughly $126 million package of road improvements and right-of-way acquisitions in Baldwin County, which would draw on both RESTORE money and the state’s broader economic settlement with BP. Every Baldwin County representative on the council backed the project, along with Gov. Ivey, while Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson cast the lone dissenting vote.
Another long-discussed proposal would add a $65 million automobile import and export facility at the Theodore Industrial Canal. Alabama State Port Authority CEO Jimmy Lyons said the project, which he pitched as having potential statewide economic impact, drew support from Gov. Ivey and every Mobile County representative on the council, along with several Baldwin County votes tied to hopes it could help attract a manufacturer to the county’s long-vacant, $30 million South Alabama Megasite near Bay Minette.
A study commissioned and released by the port authority projected the facility could create as many as 871 jobs and generate millions of dollars in state and local tax revenue. But some environmental advocates have questioned whether limited RESTORE dollars should go toward a port expansion at all.
Mobile Baykeeper Executive Director Casi Callaway recently compared large road and port projects to political pork, arguing they are better suited for federal transportation dollars or private investment. She said the council should instead prioritize water quality and environmental resilience projects, particularly sewer and septic upgrades.
“The sewer projects are huge,” Callaway said. “Every municipality has a proposal in front of the council to upgrade septic tanks or upgrade wastewater treatment, and those can be transformative for environmental health.”
Council Executive Director Eliska Morgan defended the port authority proposal’s inclusion among tourism and restoration-focused projects, noting the RESTORE Act explicitly allows for “port infrastructure improvements” and arguing the project could be transformational for the broader region.
“There will be criticism that it’s not all 100 percent environmental- or tourism-based projects, but I think if you asked the Mobile Chamber of Commerce if they were opposed to an automotive facility, I don’t think you’re going to get that same criticism,” Morgan said. “It will never be perfect. The council will be criticized by some but applauded by others for the same project.”
Bonner said the spill’s economic toll on tourism and local businesses was just as real as its environmental damage, adding that BP’s civil penalties to Alabama likely would have been far smaller had potential economic losses been excluded from the settlement calculations.
The structure of the RESTORE Act itself reflects that tension between economic and environmental priorities. Bucket 1 allows for a broader mix of tourism, infrastructure and economic development projects, while Bucket 3 caps infrastructure spending at 25 percent and imposes a stricter environmental focus, a distinction that has already shaped which projects are likely to be funded first.
Morgan noted that other BP-related funding streams outside the council’s direct control have already produced results: more than $278 million in Alabama environmental projects have been completed, funded or approved through those channels, with another $28 million allocated from a separate RESTORE bucket the council doesn’t oversee.
For Bucket 1, roughly 30 projects with an economic focus, including the Baldwin County road package and the port authority’s automotive facility, have advanced for evaluation, with a combined estimated cost exceeding $413 million, though many would draw on multiple funding sources. The council intends to select from that list before the end of July to build its first Multi-Year Implementation Plan, with any project needing at least six votes out of 10 to make the cut.
A separate slate of 113 projects, priced at roughly $138 million, is being evaluated for funding from Bucket 3. Most of those proposals are environmental in nature or address infrastructure needs with a clear environmental benefit, such as sewer and stormwater upgrades, and are expected to be selected by 2019.
Complicating the process further, the original 30 Bucket 1 projects also appear on the Bucket 3 list, because some could technically qualify under either category. Morgan said septic tank removals and similar water quality projects can resemble infrastructure on paper but are counted toward Bucket 3 because improving water quality is their primary purpose, exempting them from Bucket 1’s 25 percent infrastructure cap.
Environmental groups worry that approach, while helpful for preserving limited Bucket 1 money for purely economic projects, could end up eating into the pool of Bucket 3 funding available for habitat recovery, wetland conservation and shoreline restoration work.
A coalition of environmental organizations called the Alabama Recovery Group recently sent a letter to Bonner urging the council to adopt a “triple bottom line” approach that balances economic, environmental and community benefits. The group specifically pointed to hydrologic restoration projects such as the $40 million Three Mile Creek Watershed Restoration and a $1.27 million stormwater management project for the Toulmin Springs Branch and Gum Tree Branch as proposals that deliver both habitat and water quality benefits.
Those projects, the group argued, “not only have instream habitat benefits for wildlife, but also downstream benefits to water quality and quantity,” and help sustain conditions needed for other restoration efforts, including oyster reef restoration and marsh creation in Mobile Bay. The Alabama Recovery Group, which includes Conservation Alabama, the Alabama Renewal Group, Mobile Baykeeper, Conservation Alabama Foundation, the National Audubon Society, the Alabama Coastal Foundation, the National Wildlife Federation and the Gulf Restoration Network, said it also favors prioritizing stormwater and wastewater infrastructure on both sides of Mobile Bay.
Kara Lankford, director of Gulf Coast restoration at the National Audubon Society, said the coalition commissioned a telephone poll in December of 625 registered Alabama voters to gauge public opinion on how the settlement money should be spent. Fifty-four percent of voters statewide, and 59 percent in southwest Alabama specifically, said funds should primarily go toward restoring wildlife habitat rather than construction projects. Voters also favored shoreline restoration that would make communities more resilient to storms and coastal flooding over projects like roads and bridges.
“We feel like this is something that is going to be helpful to our decision makers as they go to the drawing board,” Lankford said. “Obviously we know they will consider oil spill impacts, but also we hope they will consider what the community wants.”
Public input has been a persistent point of friction, in part because the council operates outside Alabama’s Open Meetings Act as a creation of Congress that exists in a gray area between state and federal oversight. Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon confirmed the council met behind closed doors again this week, adding without elaboration that his priority remains “infrastructure … period.”
Morgan defended the closed-door format, saying most sessions get “into the weeds” on policy and procedure and can run for hours. She said the council isn’t required to disclose how individual members vote once projects are selected later this year, though she expects those votes will ultimately be made public.
“I think, with some of the decisions coming up, they’ll have to be a little bit more candid and maybe a little bit more honest, which is hard to do in a room full of a hundred people when you’re trying to make decisions that affect a whole region,” Morgan said. “You have to have frank discussions, and sometimes I don’t know how honest they would be if they were in a room full of reporters.”
Lankford urged residents to get involved before the council, a body far smaller and less accessible than the state Legislature, finalizes its decisions. “The process may seem a little slow, and now, almost eight years later, people may be a little disconnected from the spill, but money just started flowing last year, so this is the time for them to engage,” she said. “It’s only year two of a 15-year payout period, and restoration is just getting started.”
Bonner, who helped shepherd the RESTORE Act through a bipartisan coalition stretching from the Florida Keys to South Texas, said the effort would be difficult to replicate in today’s political climate. He recalled the early, chaotic days after the spill, when officials in Washington were still scrambling to understand the scope of the disaster.
“There were moments when we didn’t know when this was going to end or how it was going to end,” Bonner said. “Initially they denied there was even oil coming out of the ground. Then they admitted it but were stumped on how to cap it. They were even talking at one point about detonating a nuclear weapon because they couldn’t get it capped.”
Bonner said the legislative coalition needed to pass the RESTORE Act ultimately included states like Texas and Florida that were less directly affected by the spill, a tradeoff he said was necessary to build enough political support to get the bill across the finish line, eventually by attaching it to a must-pass transportation bill.
He also noted that none of Alabama’s congressional delegation anticipated how much the state Legislature would ultimately shape the money available under the RESTORE Act. In 2016, under then-Gov. Robert Bentley, lawmakers voted to take Alabama’s share of the economic settlement with BP as a one-time $639 million lump sum, directing most of it toward state debt and general fund budget gaps rather than coastal recovery.
“One of the biggest disappointments for us, obviously, is that the state, under the previous administration, decided to take a big cut of that money,” Bonner said. “That was never the intent of it, and it shouldn’t have happened, but it did.”