Oil Under the Beach; Burned Teen Beats the Odds; Medal of Honor Award Today
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Live from Studio 7 at the CNN world headquarters, the big stories for Tuesday, September 21st, starting with BP's spilled oil seeping under the beautiful white sand beaches there in Florida, but apparently nobody's allowed to dig it up.</s>DAN THOMAS, REPORTER, WEAR: I can't build a sand castle?</s>PAT GONZALES, U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE: Are you digging -- what are you digging for, sir?</s>THOMAS: I'm digging in the sand to see if it's there.</s>GONZALES: Are you digging for oil products?</s>BALDWIN: And we followed his heart-tugging journey for almost a year now. Florida teen Michael Brewer, set on fire, finishes his long and painful burn treatments today.</s>MICHAEL BREWER, TEEN SET ON FIRE: It feels good. I'm free.</s>BALDWIN: And later today, President Obama awards the Medal of Honor to an Air Force tech who died on a top-secret mission to Laos.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I live it every day. I live it every day. It haunts me.</s>BALDWIN: And again, good morning, everyone. I'm Brooke Baldwin, in for Tony Harris. Those stories and your comments right here, right now in the CNN NEWSROOM. I want to begin this hour with a question for you. What if the Gulf oil spill saturated Florida's beaches -- I'm talking getting deep, deep down in there -- but the law wouldn't allow anyone to clean it up? In fact, federal rules may be limiting that cleanup process by preventing crews from digging deeper than -- get this -- six inches. A reporter who went digging for oil on one of those Florida beaches was told, get out of here, it's illegal. Here is the story from Dan Thomas of affiliate WEAR in Pensacola.</s>THOMAS: Well, we had come out here to the national park to show you just what exactly is in the sand lower than six inches, and we wanted to use the shovel and give you a look. But apparently that's illegal. (voice-over): BP has machines ready to go that can dig down to 18 inches. A quick look at the manual operation and you can clearly see there's oil well below that six-inch limit, but that's about all we can show you, because in the midst of doing this story, this happened --</s>GONZALES: You don't have a permit to do this.</s>THOMAS: A man claiming to be with the Fish & Wildlife Service stopped us to say it's illegal to dig in the sand. (on camera): So I can't build a sand castle?</s>GONZALES: Are you digging -- what are you digging for, sir?</s>THOMAS: I'm digging in the sand to see if it's there.</s>GONZALES: Are you digging for oil products?</s>THOMAS: Not necessarily. I just want to see what's there.</s>GONZALES: OK. I'll tell you what, if you are not going to cooperate with me, I will get a National Park Service refuge officer out here. I'll get a law enforcement guy out here to talk to you.</s>THOMAS (voice-over): He said it would be OK if we just moved down the beach, so we did. But about the time I put the shovel in the sand, this happened -- (on camera): How's it going?</s>THOMAS (voice-over): A park service police officer asked to see my papers.</s>OFC. A. NEGRON, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE: OK. Do you have documents, press pass?</s>THOMAS (on camera): I have a press pass. Do you want to see my press pass?</s>NEGRON: Yes, I'd like to see it.</s>THOMAS (voice-over): He said that it's illegal to film in a national park unless I can prove I'm with the media. After showing him my press pass, he then told me what I was and was not allowed to do. (on camera): He said we had to leave. So we left. He said, "Come to a public beach," which is right here, right?</s>NEGRON: Yes, but you can't dig.</s>THOMAS: I can't dig?</s>NEGRON: No, you can can't.</s>THOMAS: OK. Why is that?</s>NEGRON: Because you can't dig in a national park.</s>THOMAS: Oh. OK.</s>NEGRON: And still, even though it's a public beach, it's open to the public, it's still a national seashore and you can't dig.</s>THOMAS: So no sand castles, none of that, huh? (voice-over): Apparently, the National Park Service will only allow BP workers to dig, and only down to six inches. (on camera): And the National Park Service is looking at changing that rule, possibly allowing them to dig as low as 18 inches. But they won't make a decision on that for another couple of weeks. Reporting on the Gulf Isles National Seashore, Dan Thomas, Channel 3 News.</s>BALDWIN: So that reporter couldn't dig, but apparently local authorities have been, and they're trying to figure out which agency is behind this six-inch rule on the beach cleanup. Want to introduce you to Buck Lee. He is the executive director of the Santa Rosa Island Authority in Florida. He joins me from Pensacola. Where, Buck, I know you were born and raised, so I imagine this issue is near and dear to you. And sir, if I can, I just want to get to the crux of this issue, which has been this mission I know you've been on for weeks. And the question is this: Why can't these oil spill workers dig deeper than six inches on the beach? Do you have an answer for that?</s>BUCK LEE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SANTA ROSA ISLAND: Yes. Unfortunately, the federal government thinks that we may hit a sunken ship or an arrowhead. So we cannot go down --</s>BALDWIN: What do you mean by that?</s>LEE: Well, it's my understanding that one of the federal agencies -- and I believe it's the Department of Interior -- has an archaeological department that, if you go more than six inches, what could we possibly hit of value to the history of our great nation? And they're thinking it could be a sunken ship. If it is, it's the USS Phantom, probably -- or either that on an arrowhead.</s>BALDWIN: So, ultimately -- let me just interject -- so, ultimately, it sounds to me that it's the Department of Interior who is putting the brakes on this digging deeper than six inches issue. And so I guess it just makes sense to ask, if they're concerned with finding something perhaps archaeological beyond that six-inch mark, how can you prove there isn't?</s>LEE: Because we have done in the last two years what we call beach nourishment where we pump sand about three miles out of the Gulf. We also have what we call an engineered beach. It costs us about $100,000, and we have a coastal engineer company that comes in and does markers on our beach. We have eight and a half miles wedged between Gulf Isles National Seashore on the east and west of us. So basically our coastal engineer company that we pay $100,000 a year for has already done all of these coastal research studies, and there is no sunken ship.</s>BALDWIN: So, if they've done the studies, Buck, and you know that there is nothing cultural or historically, archaeologically significant underneath that sand, when can you dig?</s>LEE: As soon as the federal government issues a permit. Now, who issues that permit?</s>BALDWIN: Good question.</s>LEE: Is it Coast Guard, is it EPA, Department of Interior? I would like to say thanks to Senator Bill Nelson's office. He's the U.S. senator of the state of Florida. They're trying to help me resolve this problem, too, but the bureaucracy that I faced over the last three months has just been unbelievable.</s>BALDWIN: You know what, Buck? We actually -- we reached out to Senator Nelson's office, because I was curious as to how they are handling this whole thing, and they indeed told us they've heard from you, they're trying to get help for you to get these permits to clean the beaches more adequately because, Buck, the crux of the issue is you are concerned with what lies beneath, right? What lies beneath this sort of superficial six-inch mark, possibly the tar balls -- we saw in the video what appeared to be oil under that sand -- because you're worried what could happen with that oil.</s>LEE: Well, the main thing is that, first, we have eight and a half miles of beach. We know that 18 inches down, it's not matted throughout the beach. It came in, in little ribbons. We need to find where this is and we need to sift the sand before BP decides to pull out everybody and leaves Pensacola Beach and northwest Florida. And the same thing over Perdido Key Beach, which is part of Escambia County, and then into Alabama and Mississippi. They are going to be facing the same struggles that we're facing. And we just need help. We have a machine called a sand shark that can go down 18 inches. It brings the sand up on a conveyor belt, sifts it like a screen door, puts our beautiful white sand back on the beach. If there's any small tar balls, it takes it and puts it in the hopper. What we're worried about now is, during the high surf conditions that we have every now and then, it comes out, goes on the beach, takes our sand, and exposes the oil. The oil then can slip back into the Gulf, and God knows where it goes.</s>BALDWIN: Right. I know, Buck, it's another chapter in this whole BP oil disaster issue. I know BP is aware. Senator Bill Nelson is aware. I'm sure Department of Interior is as well. But as soon as you hear from the federal government as to when you get to dig, do me a favor and let us know. Will you?</s>LEE: I will call the lady that called me this morning.</s>BALDWIN: Good deal. Buck, I thank you. And, by the way, we have been making phone calls as well. Or actually, I should my colleague Josh Levs has been making some phone calls as well to figure out where this six-inch rule -- where does it come from? We were sitting around the editorial meeting thinking, where did they get six inches from?</s>JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We had a little team making calls this morning. You can't even get a beach umbrella to stay in the ground in less than six inches. I have a little news for you, Brooke. Some of this just popped up from our affiliate, WEAR. They are now saying that this person was wrong. The superintendent of the national park who that beach reports to is now saying that the beach was wrong in having any official come forward and say that you cannot go ahead for six inches. So they're walking that back. And we can kind of see where that came from and why that came out. We have been contacting so many agencies. We talked to beaches and coastal systems of the state of Florida. They said there are no state limits at all on anything like this. They said check the Department of Interior, right? So we called the Department of Interior because we also saw an article that pushed to them. They don't know anything about it. We spoke with a whole bunch of agencies at the Department of Interior. None of them pointed to anything involving six inches, anything like that. And we also found an article that quoted from them, someone from the Joint Information Center in Mobile. And that person was quoted as saying this exact same thing, that you cannot dig deeper than six inches without a permit. But then when we called them, they told us that they couldn't point to any rule, and we're still waiting to hear back if there is anything specific that they have. So, long and short of it, it does not appear that there is any rule anywhere about this. I'll tell you how hard I searched. Take a look at this. I was even searching online to see if there's anything out all anywhere on any dot-gov about digging six inches. The only thing I could find in the entire universe of our incredible number of rules in this country is this thing that says a digging permit is required for all excavations greater than six inches in depth. So, I was like, huh, maybe this comes from somewhere, right? But it doesn't. Actually, this is just something about the Department of Energy talking about excavations and making sure you stay safe, and had nothing to do with protecting beaches. So, basically when we look at all this, the only actual rule that we know of is right here: "Possessing, destroying, injuring, defacing, removing, digging, or disturbing from its natural state is prohibited." This is what the National Park Service points to. And you can't deface public property, ,you can't destroy public property, you can't come along and do some massive dig. There are federal regulations that do say that, the straight from our legal system. But, Brooke, this stuff about you can't dig six inches on a beach, there's no law anywhere at all to back that up. Nothing.</s>BALDWIN: It's something we found very curious, and hopefully someone, perhaps the federal government is watching, and maybe someone at the Department of Interior can pick up a phone and give us a call. Josh, I appreciate you making those phone calls.</s>LEVS: You got it.</s>BALDWIN: Also, we are watching this tragic story out of Afghanistan. A coalition helicopter went down. More U.S. troops are killed. We'll have more on that.