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published: Friday, July 02, 2010
Helping to heal the Gulf Coast
Okahumpka company's vacuums can collect 500 gallons of water and oil in just three minutes
THERESA CAMPBELL
Staff Writer
When Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal made an plea for equipment to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Don Buckner and 17 employees at his company, Vac-Tron Equipment, began working overtime to answer the call.
A total of 30 massive industrial vacuums have been sent to the Gulf Coast region and the company is prepared to make hundreds more.
"We are humbly here willing to help clean up the spill," said Buckner, chief executive officer of the Okahumpka company that began in 1997. It produces wet-and-dry industrial vacuums used in underground utility lines, industrial cleanup, and in manhole, lateral and storm-drain clean out.
But for now, Vac-Tron is focused on the natural disaster in the Gulf -- where 5,000-pound industrial tanks with skimmers are used on barges to collect oil in the ocean.
"Contractors are the ones utilizing the equipment and they are pleased; they continue to buy the equipment," Buckner said. "The fact that we can load 500 gallons of water and oil in three minutes is pretty impressive."
He said the oil floats to the top of the container and is then placed in a storage tank and transported to a processing facility, where the oil will be recycled. A bottom valve on the vacuum tank allows the collected water to be returned to the ocean.
Vac-Tron also has manufactured a smaller "Beach Vac" that is being used to remove tar bars that wash ashore.
"We're at war, literally at war, in trying to clean up the Gulf," said Buckner, who has been spending time in Plaquemines Parish and Grand Island, La., areas that he has found to be heavily affected by the oil spill.
"You see what is on TV, but until you are actually there, you don't understand the enormity of the issue and the smell," the CEO said. "To see beautiful beaches covered with tar is just overwhelming. It's emotional and it's sad."
Buckner is concerned about the impact of the oil spill on Florida, where he was born and raised. He believes it's important for state officials to have a plan in place before more of Florida's beaches are affected.
"If they wait for more oil to overwhelm the beaches, it's too late," he said. "Everybody is trying to remain calm. Everybody is trying to take it in an orderly manner, and there is not time for that. They need to have the equipment in place and be ready to go.
"It's like a firetruck -- you don't go and try to build a firetruck when your house is on fire," he said.
Buckner encourages state officials to be more proactive. He said he has been in touch with politicians in Tallahassee and is waiting for a reply.
"Our plan is to build 400 machines in 120 days and distribute them across the state at all of the different beaches, and there are 600 beaches and 2,276 miles of shoreline in the state of Florida," he said. "It's not 'if' the oil spill is going to show up on the beach, it's 'when.' It will happen."
He also believes with the thousands of oil rigs that are placed in the Gulf, many that have been there for 30 to 40 years, that there is the possibility for more oil spills in the future.
"These types of spills may be a part of life for a long, long time," he said.
"Our No. 1 capability is production capability," Buckner said of his company, which is billed as "the world's largest" manufacturer of portable industrial vacuum equipment. "We are able to produce equipment in a very timely manner. No one else in the country has the production capability that we do. We have the expertise; Our forte´ is being able develop equipment for this type of situation in a very, very quick manner."
Vac-Tron is currently manufacturing two vacuums a day for used in the Gulf, and the company could produced as many as five a day, the CEO said.
The challenge his company faces doesn't have anything to do with production, he said.
"The trick is getting our equipment in the hands of somebody who cares and is not worried about politics or worried about bureaucracy," Buckner said. "It's a bureaucratic nightmare if you ask me; bureaucracy is the delay in the cleanup."
