County: No more smoky holidays

PANAMA CITY — Bay County officials are trying to prevent a repeat of this past Memorial Day weekend when smoke from a controlled burn that got out of hand closed down a major highway to the beach.

On Tuesday, county commissioners questioned what could be done to stop large landowners, including government agencies, from burning brush on busy holiday weekends. Commissioners directed Bay County Chief of Emergency Services Mark Bowen to come back with a recommendation before the July 4 weekend.

On May 23, a controlled burn turned into a 46-acre blaze, shutting down of the busiest roads on one of its busiest weekends. Bay County and Panama City Beach fire departments wrangled with the blaze to the west of State 79 for nearly a day.

“It impacted an enormous amount of people,” Bowen said. “And once the visibility is zero on that roadway, we had no choice but to close it.”

At its height, the fire spread to a 46-acre radius and embers leaped east over the empty highway that otherwise would have been bustling with traffic for the onset of Memorial Day weekend. The highway was reopened on the morning of May 24.

During the smoke event, State 79 was shut down from Back Beach Road to State 388, and traffic was rerouted onto State 388, which took motorists into Lynn Haven on State 77. That caused traffic backups in Lynn Haven.

During Tuesday’s Bay County Commission meeting, Commissioner Mike Thomas said he was contacted by many irate people that weekend.

“We had a problem out at the beach with people being able to get to the beach because of smoke blocking the roads,” he said. “And I was asked an awful lot of questions from very heated people, people with businesses that had closed, and people that took an extra three hours with children and old folks to get from a short distance.”

He said Bay County looked horrible in the incident but it wasn’t the county’s fault.

“I don’t think it’s our job,” he said. “But (to) the people that don’t know that, it looked bad.”

He said he has asked staff to come up with ideas to prevent a repeat occurrence.

“The same thing happened three years ago on the Fourth of July, and I’d just like for us to get a few answers,” he said.

Bowen said the fire that got out of control was a controlled burn on property owned by the Northwest Florida Water Management District.

Lauren Engel, a spokeswoman for the water management district, said after the meeting that the controlled burn was on the district’s property but it was performed by a contractor the district hires.

“Our staff isn’t involved in scheduling of the burn,” she said. “With burning, you have to have particular weather conditions. When a day meets those conditions, they choose to burn.”

State law would not allow Bay County to pass an ordinance outlawing the burnings during busy holiday weekends unless it issued an emergency declaration before each of those weekends.

Cory Wilson, forest area supervisor for the state Division of Forestry, told commissioners the best option is for county officials to talk to the large landowners about not burning over the major holidays.

“I think the best way is to get with agencies involved in this thing, and have a meeting with them, and get voluntary compliance,” he said. “The state Legislature has said that prescribed burns are the right of a landowner. We have a legislative mandate to issue authorizations. I’ll restrict burning on an individual basis for our county if weather is such that I feel that wildfires would be a danger.”

After the meeting, Bay County public information officer Valerie Sale said a meeting is going to be scheduled between county officials and major landowners to see whether the landowners will voluntarily stop the burning during the Memorial Day, Labor Day and Fourth of July weekends.

In other action Tuesday, the commission:

-Approved an agreement with the Florida Department of Health that will allow the Bay County Health Department to have a 7,000 foot expansion of its facility.

-Approved a contract with BCL Civil Contractors for $1.38 million and another $83,500 for contingency and testing for a new sidewalk project along Thomas Drive from Laird Street to near North Lagoon Drive.

-Approved refinancing bonds with Compass Bank to get a lower interest rate on bonds funding a sewer system operated by the Advanced Wastewater Treatment System, which consists of Bay County, Calloway, Parker and Springfield. The cost of refinancing will be about $100,000, but the savings from the lower interest rate will be $684,000. The duration of the bonds will not change.

-Approved spending up to $30,000 as 20 percent local matching funds to allow a defense and professional services company to expand its business in Panama City. The name of the company was not divulged. Dubbed “Project Dove” by the Bay County Economic Development Alliance, the expansion would create a minimum of 30 new jobs with an average wage of $66,520 a year.