Plan To Use Gulf Oil Spill Funds For Beach Hotel Sparks Lawsuit

The Alabama gulf coast is heavily developed with condo and hotel properties. Now the state wants to use Gulf Coast restoration funds to build a new beach hotel and conference center. Debbie Elliott/NPR hide caption

The Alabama gulf coast is heavily developed with condo and hotel properties. Now the state wants to use Gulf Coast restoration funds to build a new beach hotel and conference center.

Money is flowing now to Gulf Coast states to remedy damage from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and subsequent spill. All kinds of projects are underway, from building boat ramps to shoring-up marshland.

They're being paid for with a $1 billion down payment BP made toward its ultimate responsibility to make the Gulf Coast whole, a figure estimated to be up to $18 billion.

With that much money at stake, just what qualifies as coastal restoration has become a matter of debate.

Environmentalists are suing to stop BP funds from paying for a hotel development, and say the money should only be used for ecological projects.

One of those is underway in Pensacola Beach, Fla., where tall street lights in a public beach parking lot threaten sea turtles.

"At night, they are beacons," says Ben Frater, a restoration biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Sea turtle hatchlings instinctively use light reflected off the water to direct them to their home in the Gulf of Mexico.

"So they're instead misoriented, they get confused," Frater says.

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Plan To Use Gulf Oil Spill Funds For Beach Hotel Sparks Lawsuit