The next Sand Shark should arrive in Alabama by next week, Melick said. At that point, BP will have two separate crews, each covering 500-yard sections at a time from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week, on the Alabama coast. They plan to use one machine along the Mississippi coast, Melick said, but the process has yet to begin here.
The mayors of both Orange Beach and Gulf Shores have said they plan to monitor BP’s deep-cleaning progress through the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
The first week of the effort should determine how quickly crews can move along the coast, Melick said.
“This doesn’t finish it,” Melick said. “We’ll still have teams out there to pick up tar mats and tar balls if they get washed up during the winter storms. We’re not gone once this is over. We’re confident we’ll have the buried stuff up and out, and then it’s just the maintenance.”