LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — Pensacola Beach has dirty, black oil tainting the beautiful white sand. Now, a Lake County company has told WFTV it has been hired to help clean up that oil. The company makes giant vacuum cleaners and those cleaners can suck some of the oil right off the beach.
VIDEO REPORT: Oil Getting Sucked Up
Things are busy at Vac-Tron Equipment (see map) putting together vacuum cleaners and they're about to get busier.
"I spoke to BP directly last week and they allocated some money for this type of equipment," Vac-Tron CEO Don Buckner said.
BP and cleanup crews are using 25 of the massive vacuums to suck up crude oil along the Gulf Coast.
BP's spill is being dubbed the worst oil disaster in U.S. history. Oil turned the Gulf water black and ruined beaches.
Buckner says the mobile machines are a big part of the cleanup. Once the oils picked up, it sits in a 500 gallon tank and later disposed of. In instances where oil and water are picked up at the same time, the vacuum separates them automatically. The worker just has to wait for the oil to rise to the top and release the valve.
Buckner told WFTV the demand keeps growing.
"We anticipate we can be into the hundreds, over even the thousands, mark in that region cleaning up material," he said.
At $50,000 each, that's a huge profit for the Lake County company that's been around since 1998. The crew of 30 can assemble at least two a day, but Vac-Tron needs more help.
"This is a catastrophe, but at least in our area it's creating jobs," Buckner said. "So we're waiting on the phone call."
Vac-Tron Equipment is also working on a new machine that would pickup tar balls.