Led by their volunteer fire chief, James Hinton, the small town (population: 1,000) decided to act in order to guard sensitive estuaries supporting 19 protected species, including the bald eagle. Residents of Magnolia Spring agreed to Hinton’s plan that called for positioning a wall of barges at the mouth of Weeks Bay, then deploying a series of floating surface barriers (called boom) behind them to catch any oil that slipped past the first line of defense.

 

The federal plan called for laying out only a single boom to catch all the oil heading for the bay.

 

Hinton admitted that his advocacy for going around the feds could get him into trouble. “I could go to jail for going against unified command. Now, I don’t mind going to jail, I just need to make sure it’s for doing the right thing,” he told The New York Times.

 

Bethany Kraft, executive director of the Alabama Coastal Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group, said Hinton’s actions were “really admirable” because he didn’t wait “for other people” to do something about the encroaching oil slick.

-Noel Brinkerhoff