By DAN KRISTIE, Staff Writer

A former Republican candidate for the 6th District congressional seat spent the last two weeks of May in Mobile, Ala., as a participant in BP's effort to clean the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

A geologist by training, Walt Hufford declared his candidacy for the 6th District Republican nomination in December 2009. But he left the race in early 2010 after incumbent Republican Jim Gerlach announced he would seek re-election.

If Hufford had stayed in the race, it's possible he could have been simultaneously responding to the Deepwater Horizon spill and running in the May 18 primary.

Hufford, who lives on a farm in West Brandywine, has worked for BP for more than two decades. He formerly worked for the division of BP responsible for extracting petroleum. Now, he works for the division that cleans industrial sites left contaminated by operations owned or purchased by BP.

Hufford said he has never

before worked on an active disaster site. His job, he said, usually involves environmental remediation. But he said he and many other BP employees have had to drop their normal jobs and learn how to be crisis responders.

"When this incident happened, it was basically all hands on deck," he said.

Hufford said he has been working with 400 other people in an information center in Mobile. His job is to communicate with public officials about the effort to protect the shorelines in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, he said.

He said he could not discuss much of what he does in Mobile but he had a chance to look at the spill from an airplane.

"You can see the oil on the water … it's not like taking a map, drawing a line and saying everything in the line is oil. There may be oil in the line, but it's not this huge pool. It follows the tides. It follows the currents," Hufford said.

He said BP is getting beat up in the press but many BP employees are working hard to clean the spill and stop the leak. He said the spill is tragic, but these efforts ought to be noted.

Hufford is working a two-weeks-on, two-weeks-off disaster response schedule. He said he just finished two weeks of 18-hour days in Alabama and is now working two weeks from home. He said this schedule will repeat until the crisis is resolved.

To contact staff writer Dan Kristie, send an e-mail to dkristie@dailylocal.com.