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Blue-collar Plaquemines Parish, which has absorbed some of the spill's worst environmental damage, has received slightly more than $1 million in BP money, of which $998,405 went to cover oil-related overtime and other payroll expenses. "I didn't run up bills. I treated their money like I treated our own," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, an outspoken critic of BP and the federal government's response to the spill. "Maybe down the road I'll look and say we should have stockpiled." ___ When BP was heavily under attack from the top down for its response to the rapidly growing environmental disaster, the company started throwing huge sums of money at the problems it had in the water and on land. Cutting checks to governments along the coast addressed both issues, even if it meant waiting until later to figure out details like how officials would have to account for the cash. "We recognized the importance of getting funding to the states, parishes and counties quickly, and therefore provided advance funding to help kick start their emergency response," Feick, the BP spokeswoman, said in an email. The payments to governments gave BP the kind of good PR it desperately needed, said Daniel Keeney, president of a Dallas-based public relations firm. By giving money to communities and allowing them to spend it largely as they saw fit, BP also put a buffer between itself and any questionable spending. "Whether the funds could be perceived as being wasted or not really reflects on the organization accepting the money rather than BP," Keeney said. Louis Skrmetta, one of the tens of thousands of business owners and individuals still waiting to get a share of a $20 billion claims fund established by BP, finds the state and local governments' spending galling, even if it's almost all BP's money. Skrmetta runs a three-boat fleet that has a contract with the National Park Service to ferry day trippers to Ship Island, a recreation area about 10 miles offshore from Gulfport, Miss. He can't understand why BP paid so much to governments while businesses were suffering. "I didn't think there was much logic in it," Skrmetta said. "Now, looking back in retrospect, it was a way to win over politicians, a way to win over the media." In February, BP asked Louisiana parishes that received up to $1 million in advance payments in May for a detailed summary of how that money has been spent. Parishes were warned they must exhaust the advance money before they can make any new claims. Some parishes, however, have banked that money and already billed BP for expenses on top of it. Terrebonne Parish says it hasn't spent any of its $1 million advance, yet BP has paid it an additional $927,842, mostly for contractors and payroll costs. Parish President Michel Claudet said he isn't concerned that BP will try to recover unspent advance money. "The agreement from the beginning was that it was nonrefundable," he said. ___ The oil spill drove away tourists and sapped tax revenues, but it was a boon for private contractors and consultants. Governments have spent more than $19 million of BP's money to hire contractors, according to the AP's review. The Louisiana attorney general's office has spent $4 million and counting of BP's money to hire outside lawyers and accountants to help piece together litigation against the company. Five of the seven law firms hired and their attorneys have poured more than $80,000 total into Attorney General Buddy Caldwell's campaign coffers in recent years. Amber Davis, who lives with Gulf County, Fla., Commissioner Bill Williams, incorporated Statecraft LLC less than a month after oil began streaming into the Gulf. Three months later, Statecraft won a monthlong, $14,468 contract to perform public information and government liaison work for the county of about 15,000 people. Davis, who has worked in marketing and community relations, said she had planned to form her company before the spill. She also had volunteered for the county's emergency operations center for three months before she was given the contract. "There is a perception of a conflict of interest in just about anything that anybody does," Davis said. "I guess my statement to that was that I volunteered anywhere from 15 to 18 hours a day for three months and never received a penny." Williams said he consulted the county attorney and an ethics commission, and neither saw a problem with awarding the contract to Davis. Gulf County awarded an identical one-month, $14,468 contract -- this one for monitoring beach pollution
-- to Florida Eco Services, a company founded days after the rig explosion by Patrick Farrell, whose wife is on the board of the local Chamber of Commerce. Farrell says he has a background in managing and maintaining properties, as well as beach restoration. County Attorney Jeremy Novak, who also is an attorney for Florida Eco Services, said it was a matter of giving business to locals rather than out-of-state contractors. "It sounds like a bias, and it is, but I'm glad people in Gulf County got work and actually had the ability to feed their families," Novak said. "I don't see it as profiteering. I see it as obviously doing what you can because what you're doing for a living isn't available to you." ___ Local authorities could have taken even fuller advantage of BP's largesse had the company or state officials not nixed some requests that had no clear connection to the oil. Police in D'Iberville, Miss., for instance, were denied a $245,000 mobile command unit, a $140,000 hazardous materials vehicle and a $19,000 Harley-Davidson. "If we had to establish barricades, they thought it would be more maneuverable," City Manager Michael Janus said of the motorcycle. "It was a bit of a reach, obviously." Although BP footed the bill for other pricey acquisitions, some officials concede they may have to use taxpayer money to maintain them. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries spent $5 million for 22 boats and the accompanying trawls, nets and hauling vehicles. "Nobody asked me for a space shuttle or anything," said Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham. BP money will cover the costs of maintaining the vessels, leasing dock space and buying fuel for at least three years, he said. Whether taxpayers will be forced to pick up these costs after that hasn't been decided. "They don't run for free," Barham said.
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