ORANGE BEACH, Ala. - When it comes to air, water and soil sampling, Orange Beach officials are taking matters into their own hands to help keep their citizens accurately informed. The city recently added a geologist expert in oil remediation to their team to do their own independent testing of problems related to the oil spill.

According to City Administrator Ken Grimes, Mark White of Cameron Consulting out of Greenville, S.C. will work with the city to monitor the air and water quality. White will be paid from funds received by the city in the first round of BP funds that was given to the State of Alabama. White is working as a subcontractor with KREBS engineering, a firm already contracted with Orange Beach.

“We will be doing our own air, water and oil sampling intently and will be able to hopefully give you accurate data within a couple of weeks,” Kennon said. “We don’t want to just shoot from the hip. We want to go through very specific scientific methods so that when we give you information, it will be accurate.”

Kennon assured citizens that if there were problems, they would be the first to know, regardless of the repercussions for the community.

In addition, Kennon said the city was going to put divers in the waters of the Perdido Pass to look for any oil product that might not be visible on the surface.

“We want to make sure there is no contamination down below and we also want to keep an eye on our fish habitat to see what that is looking like.”

Kennon said it may be two weeks before initial reports are available, but that the city would do whatever they had to do to protect their waters and to keep the citizens correctly informed.