SMITH POINT, Texas – A 30-mile scar of debris along the Texas coast stands as a festering testament to what state and local officials say is FEMA’s sluggish response to the 2008 hurricane season.

Two and a half months after Hurricane Ike blasted the shoreline, alligators and snakes crawl over vast piles of debris left by the storm.

State and local officials complain that the removal of the filth has gone almost nowhere because FEMA red tape has held up both the cleanup work and the release of the millions of dollars that Chambers County says it needs to pay for the project.

Elsewhere along the coast, similar complaints are heard: The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been slow to reimburse local governments for what they have already spent, putting the rural counties on the brink of financial collapse.

“I don’t know all the internal workings of FEMA. But if they’ve had a lot of experience in hurricanes and disaster, it looks like they could come up with some kind of process that would work,” said Chambers County Judge Jimmy Sylvia, the county’s chief administrator.

FEMA, whose very name became a bitter joke after the agency’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said it is working as fast as it can considering the complex regulations and the need to guard against fraud and waste in the use of taxpayer dollars.

The 2008 hurricane season ended this week after walloping the Texas and Louisiana Gulf coasts with three major storms: Dolly, Gustav, and Ike.

Only a hundred yards or so of the 30 miles of debris has been cleaned up because the project has been slowed by negotiations over who is responsible for what.

The federal government is responsible for public lands or hazardous waste, while private landowners must handle their own cleanup but can apply for assistance. Much of the debris has been left while crews determine whose land the junk is on.