Police Chief David Wilson and Lt. David White are on patrol, but not the kind of patrol you might expect.

They are patrolling the boom located at numerous points in Wolf Bay; boom positioned to keep the oil hazard at bay in this sensitive and scenic body of water.

On another day it might be members of Foley Fire Department manning the boat and checking the boom. The two agencies share the responsibility of looking for cuts in the boom and making certain boom isn’t being stolen or vandalized. The two agencies make patrols several times a week and report the findings of each patrol to Baldwin County Emergency Management Agency and the property owners along the bay, White, the lead investigator at Foley Police Department, said, “I think they enjoy seeing us out here.”

While “boom” has become a catchword that epitomizes the summer of 2010 locally, it wasn’t always so.

“Early on, when boom was so scarce, we wanted to protect it and make certain it didn’t get stolen,” Wilson said.

To this day, from a distance, it’s hard to tell whether a boat stopped at a stretch of boom is a “vessel of opportunity” checking or repairing boom or somebody up to no good, Wilson said.

At present, however, White said incidents where boom is cut are “few and far between.”

“There was an incident a couple of weeks ago where a boat, we believe, accidentally ran through some boom and tore a lot of it,” White said. “But that isn’t happening everyday.”

On this particular patrol, the day is beautiful but the water a bit too choppy for Wilson and White to maneuver the 18-foot aluminum johnboat over to Pirate’s Cove to check out boom there.

“We’ll go ahead and check on the condition of boom for others when we can,” Wilson said.

What is in evidence on this day are a number of boats in the bay. White said most of them are probably vessels of opportunity, the privately-owned boats with which BP has contracted in the oil cleanup effort.

The johnboat that Foley police and firefighters use to patrol Wolf Bay is a boat Wilson said came through military surplus channels at no cost to the city.

“When we referenced we needed it for the oil spill, it was approved pretty quick,” the chief said.

Besides patrolling the boom, Wilson said FPD’s johnboat has other applications as well. One of those could be a situation involving flooding where the boat could maneuver in shallow water.

For right now, however, the boat’s application in patrolling boom is all-important, as witnessed by the fact the Graham Creek Estates Property Owners Association allows police and firefighters to put the johnboat in the water from GCEPOA’s private boat launch.