Gulf coast oil spill

[classicman]

Three days after the Gulf oil rig explosion, the Netherlands offered to send in oil skimmers to pump oil off of the surface of the ocean. The Obama Administration turned them down because they were not 100% efficient and small amounts of oil would be pumped back into the Gulf with the excess water. EPA regulations do not allow for residue water to contain any oil. So rather than use equipment that was not 100% efficient the Obama Administration chose to let all of the oil run into the Gulf.
This is not just bad policy, it is criminal.

Since the Obama Administration turned down assistance from The Netherlands, at least 125 miles of Louisiana coastline has been ruined by the BP oil spill. Tar blobs began washing up on Florida’s white sand beaches near Pensacola days ago. And, crude oil has also been reported along barrier islands in Alabama and Mississippi.

The U.S. Government has apparently reconsidered a Dutch offer to supply 4 oil skimmers. These are large arms that are attached to oil tankers that pump oil and water from the surface of the ocean into the tanker. Water pumped into the tanker will settle to the bottom of the tanker and is then pumped back into the ocean to make room for more oil. Each system will collect 5,000 tons of oil each day.

One ton of oil is about 7.3 barrels. 5,000 tons per day is 36,500 barrels per day. 4 skimmers have a capacity of 146,000 barrels per day. That is much greater than the high end estimate of the leak. The skimmers work best in calm water, which is the usual condition this time of year in the gulf.

These systems were developed by the Dutch as a safety system in case of oil spills from either wells or tankers. The Dutch have off shore oil development and also import oil in tankers. Their economy, just like ours, runs on oil. They understand that the production and use of oil has dangers and they wanted to be ready to cope with problems like spills. The Dutch system has been used successfully in Europe.

The Dutch offered to fly their skimmer arm systems to the Gulf 3 days after the oil spill started. The offer was apparently turned down because EPA regulations do not allow water with oil to be pumped back into the ocean. If all the oily water was retained in the tanker, the capacity of the system would be greatly diminished because most of what is pumped into the tanker is sea water.

As of June 8th, BP reported that they have collected 64,650 barrels of oil in the Gulf. That is only a fraction of the amount of oil spilled from the well. That is less than one day’s rated capacity of the Dutch oil skimmers.

Turning down the Dutch skimmers just shows a total lack of leadership in the oil spill.

The Obama Administration turned down offers to help clean up the spill from The Netherlands and the British Government just days after the explosion. They didn’t accept the British help because they didn’t have the proper paperwork. The administration still has not given the OK to allow emergency workers to use a Maine company’s oil boom even though they were made aware of the warehouse full of containment boom back on May 21.

Link
Too many people and too many levels make these type of decisions.
What a shame - How much of the coastline, how man jobs, how many businesses ... could have been spared.

[classicman]

And the disappointment continues.
Its almost like a revelation to some.

Hard to read some of the comments even.

Obama disappoints from the beginning of his speech
By Eugene Robinson

Less than a minute into President Obama’s Oval Office address, my heart sank. For the umpteenth time since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began, an anxious nation was informed that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has a Nobel Prize. Obama’s speech pretty much went down hill from there.

For weeks, administration officials have been trumpeting Chu’s distinction at every opportunity. Earlier in the day, White House environmental guru Carol Browner cited the Nobel in a television interview. Presidential adviser David Axelrod talks about the Nobel all the time, as does Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. If there’s an official list of administration talking points about the response to the oil spill, “Chu’s Nobel” has to be at the top.

We can all applaud Chu’s accomplishment. But here’s the thing: Chu is a physicist, not an engineer or a biologist. His Nobel was awarded for the work he did in trapping individual atoms with lasers. He’s absurdly smart. But there’s nothing in his background to suggest he knows any more about capping an out-of-control deep-sea well, or containing a gargantuan oil spill, than, say, columnist Paul Krugman, who won the Nobel in economics. Or novelist Toni Morrison, who won the Nobel in literature.

In fact, Chu surely knows less about blowout preventers than the average oil-rig worker and less about delicate coastal marshes than the average shrimp-boat captain. His credentials, in this context, are meaningless. So do the president and his aides cite Chu’s beside-the-point Nobel to reassure Americans that the team handling the oil spill knows what it’s doing? Or are Obama, Browner, Axelrod, Gibbs and the others constantly trying to reassure themselves?

The president was cool, determined, forceful -- stylistically, all the things that the braying commentators said he had to be. But where was the substance? Specifically -- and urgently -- where was the new plan to contain the oil spill and protect the coastline? I wish I’d heard the president order the kind of all-out marshaling and deployment of resources that now seems imperative. But I didn’t.

Instead, I heard about a special commission to study the accident. I heard about new leadership at the agency that oversees offshore drilling. I heard about a new long-term restoration plan for the gulf region. All of this is great -- but what about the oil?

Obama’s real message was about the need to end America’s ruinous addiction to oil. But he didn’t lay the proper foundation for that important part of the speech. First, he needed to enlist Americans in a holy crusade to halt the worst environmental disaster in our history. Instead, he told us about Dr. Chu’s Nobel prize.

Link
From a man whose opinions I have not always agreed with, but certainly respected.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yeah, a holy crusade. Let's round up Pancho Sanza and charge the oil... maybe we can scare it back underground.

[Gravdigr]

.

[TheMercenary]

Was it useful to bring in the Chief of BP and rake him over the coals in front of a bunch of pissed off Congress people? Seems like they are more interested in the midterm elections than they are in finding solutions to the problems. A bunch of political grandstanding by both sides.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Well shit, aren't all congressional hearings political grandstanding?

[TheMercenary]

They are, but damm they take up a lot of taxpayer dollars, they get a lot of air time, and they really no longer serve a useful purpose. So why have them?

My experience with people from Congress has been nothing but dog and pony shows, when I was on active duty.

[tw]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Was it useful to bring in the Chief of BP and rake him over the coals in front of a bunch of pissed off Congress people?

They demonstrated a very important point. This BP top executive knew nothing about the business. He - like the head of GM, Chrysler, AIG, Merrily Lynch, etc knew nothing about their business other than how to make the spread sheets say what they had to say.

Congress quickly identified a major problem. Earlier, executives from the other oil companies not only knew what the business does. Each also demonstrated knowledge of what is necessary to operate oil wells safely. Congress demonstrated why BP has had so many failures - and why the other majors have not.

[busterb]

From Rigzone
Many contractors stand ready to help save the Gulf of Mexico, but rigid insurance requirements are thwarting their efforts. Contractors are required to purchase specific liability, pollution and federally mandated workers' compensation coverages designed for employees working on, around or near waterways. I think this is the Jones act. IMHO BB.To aid contractors with the requirements, MarketScout has developed OSCAR (Oil Spill Cleanup and Remediation) to provide a comprehensive insurance solution for contractors working to clean the British Petroleum oil spill. Four leading energy insurance companies are participating in OSCAR. MarketScout is the manager and founder of OSCAR.

I'm sure they'er doing this from the bottom of their pocket book.

[busterb]

A few questions I have from watching CNN last night.

Why is a foreign co. drilling in gulf? Well they won the bid. So can China, etc. others bid?

How many deep water rigs does BP own? I have other things to do to answer this.

Cooper (cnn) was talking to a contractor about the rig Atlantis. ( perhaps BP owns 65 % of this rig.)
WTF does this contractor do? Was he a contractor for the cooks, galley hands or cleanup hands? I'll make a wild ass guess that there 50 support contractors involved with a project of that magnitude.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by busterb

From Rigzone
Many contractors stand ready to help save the Gulf of Mexico, but rigid insurance requirements are thwarting their efforts. Contractors are required to purchase specific liability, pollution and federally mandated workers' compensation coverages designed for employees working on, around or near waterways.

A friend of mine, a plumbing contractor, won a bid to replace some piping on some oil barges they use on the Delaware river. He had to buy some outrageously expensive insurance, to do that work.

[busterb]

Anadarko points finger at BP on Gulf oil spill
HOUSTON (AP) - Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which owns a quarter of BP PLC' (BP)s blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, late Friday blasted BP "reckless decisions and actions" that led to the well's explosion.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Pancho Sanza?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Obamatons blame the spill on "eight years of deregulation under Bush." If Bush "deregulated" oil drilling, why has Obama threatened to prosecute BP for its alleged criminal failure to follow the regulations that Bush supposedly eliminated? If Bush's deregulation caused the spill, how did BP get permission to drill this well two months into the Obama administration – and less than one month after submitting its application?

A bit farther along:

Several leftist pundits, in their post-speech analysis, provided comic relief. No specific plan! No timetable! Too much meritocracy! No real power! No command and control!

The same critics now find themselves trapped. They buried President George W. Bush following Hurricane Katrina. They ignored the failure of the first responders and the local and state Democrats to follow existing plans.

Hmm. Looks like somebody saw which major party's adherents were doing the fucking up, doesn't it?

From here.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Pancho Sanza?

Sancho Panza