oil spill NONSENSE

[tomtucson]

Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules:fie:. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million -- if water isn't at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.:banghead:

When ships in U.S. waters take in oil-contaminated water, they are forced to store it:angry:. As U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the official in charge of the clean-up operation, explained in a press briefing on June 11, "We have skimmed, to date, about 18 million gallons of oily water--the oil has to be decanted from that [and] our yield is usually somewhere around 10% or 15% on that." In other words, U.S. ships have mostly been removing water from the Gulf, requiring them to make up to 10 times as many trips to storage facilities where they off-load their oil-water mixture, an approach Koops calls "crazy."

The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer -- but only partly. Because the U.S. didn't want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.

...A catastrophe that could have been averted is now playing out. With oil increasingly reaching the Gulf coast, the emergency construction of sand berns to minimize the damage is imperative. Again, the U.S. government priority is on U.S. jobs, with the Dutch asked to train American workers rather than to build the berns. According to Floris Van Hovell, a spokesman for the Dutch embassy in Washington, Dutch dredging ships could complete the berms in Louisiana twice as fast as the U.S. companies awarded the work.



...The U.S. government responded with "Thanks but no thanks," remarked Visser, despite BP's desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer --the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge



Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/Avertible+catastrophe/3203808/story.html#ixzz0tN4LQB00

 

[Christopher]

Wow.

If that is true then I am sure that there are people that are so sue-happy they will probably sue BP, the U.S. Government and probably the Dutch also.

It is a tragedy what happened in the Gulf, what has happened to the fish, birds, coastline, etc....the Government should have taken the Dutch up on their offer and made relations better. For those that wanted to work could have worked with the Dutch learning on the job (sometimes learning on the job from those with experience is a great way to learn things) and been proficient very quickly.

It will be interesting to see what the reasons are/were for not letting the Dutch here to help. It will be interesting to see what they say on tv if it gets that far or into court for delaying the cleanup if it is a personal matter or a matter of not getting a kickback.

Thanks for the info Tom.

 

[Russ Spence]

Here is what I have seen locally, BP has sent companies to train boat captains and their crews, they get up to speed on boom work and skimming procedures then they are cut a few weeks after completing the training, BP is paying them 2000 to 3000 per day per boat plus their fuel and 200 to 300 per deckhand as well as paying for the classes for each person on the boat to become certified in Hazmat handling.

Where do they come up with this type of plan? They train and train then replace them with new boats and captains and crew and then train them all over again. I personally have met guys that have had from 1 to 6 boats that went thru just that!

Its a useless waste of money, oh did I mention they did all this and never skimmed or picked up one single drop of oil.

 

[jlpressure]

Here is what I have seen locally, BP has sent companies to train boat captains and their crews, they get up to speed on boom work and skimming procedures then they are cut a few weeks after completing the training, BP is paying them 2000 to 3000 per day per boat plus their fuel and 200 to 300 per deckhand as well as paying for the classes for each person on the boat to become certified in Hazmat handling.

Where do they come up with this type of plan? They train and train then replace them with new boats and captains and crew and then train them all over again. I personally have met guys that have had from 1 to 6 boats that went thru just that!

Its a useless waste of money, oh did I mention they did all this and never skimmed or picked up one single drop of oil.

Ridiculous. They should be treating this like a world war, BP su*ks and the admin is sleeping and dropped the ball since day one, its wrong & disgusting

They should have every resource from around the world here. I dont care if it only works 10%, thats 10% its working and getting up oil.

Man I saw TV of 4th of July weekend and not ONE person on the beaches, my God.
If it makes it here to Myrtle Beach it would wipe out the economy , I know those beach areas are hurting for decades all the businesses, families, jobs its a national emergency and seems like they are treating it like a minor incident

 

[Jillian Shelton]

This just does not suprise me anymore. I cant believe the things our government does.

 

[Christopher]

You would think that with all the money the U.S. gives all those other foreign countries, all the great relationships the U.S. has with nations all around the world and all the times the U.S. steps in for disaster relief, you would think that other nations with this kind of knowledge in cleaning up these kinds of messes would come over and start helping.....unless the U.S. does not want them here or to help. Makes you wonder what is going on out there.

 

[jlpressure]

You would think that with all the money the U.S. gives all those other foreign countries, all the great relationships the U.S. has with nations all around the world and all the times the U.S. steps in for disaster relief, you would think that other nations with this kind of knowledge in cleaning up these kinds of messes would come over and start helping.....unless the U.S. does not want them here or to help. Makes you wonder what is going on out there.

Yes you would think.

At this point I lay it all on the Obama admin, Heck if you think of it, it could be a temporary jobs program even. Hire thousands and thousands train them get them on the beaches, on boats etc etc pay them hazard pay and get them cleaning up this stuff

I heard many have offered help and the admin isnt taking much of it for various reasons, most which are ridiculous, cant get this approval or that approval. Its our country getting attacked, they could get approval in a heart beat. The EPA or Osha wont approve things, this isnt the time to be sitting on our fricking hands. Like I said if something only works a little, at least its something. I dont care if they have to set up 50,000 barges in a row and put booms in front of them, get the darn barges. We massed the biggest fighting force in the world in World Wars, this is an attack treat it like one. Screw the EPA, heck whats worse than whats happening now

I've been to the gulf shores and Florida pan handle beaches, been many years but those are or WHERE beautiful beaches, absolutely gorgeous beaches and all this hand sitting has F'd them up, Obama should be ashamed at not doing enough

I just don't understand why more isnt being done, I know more could be done. The pictures Russ is showing are horrible along with all the other pictures I have seen its a crisis

Argggggggggggggg, I just think of the people who were gearing up for tourist season and now they have nothing, just think if someone came along and shut our businesses down without notice and this could go on for years and if they dont stop it could effect the entire east coast and travel across the Atlantic WTF

 

[Tony Shelton]

The administration is getting exactly what it wants - that being the worst disaster in history.

IF they had acted responsibly this would have just been a simple spill and would have been soon forgotten. As it stands it will mark the beginning of the end of fossil fuels in this country.

This administration has put it's political and environmental agenda ahead of the citizens in the gulf and destroyed an already weakened economy.

Does that come as a surprise.

It's time to vote these morons out!

 

[Christopher]

It is a shame seeing on tv the restaurants around the country taking oysters off their menu's, seeing the places that process the oysters closing and restaurants and hotels laying off staff all around the gulf. It is a disaster and a shame that the gubberment didn't do anything more, faster to deal with this.

The way that they are handling this crisis almost looks like they have an agenda that is not being talked about.

With all the technology out there, all the manpower we have, all the boats, barges and ships out there, if they would untie all the right hands this crisis could be handled a lot better and faster.

 

[jlpressure]

The administration is getting exactly what it wants - that being the worst disaster in history.

IF they had acted responsibly this would have just been a simple spill and would have been soon forgotten. As it stands it will mark the beginning of the end of fossil fuels in this country.

This administration has put it's political and environmental agenda ahead of the citizens in the gulf and destroyed an already weakened economy.

Does that come as a surprise.

It's time to vote these morons out!

True, but sad thing is there will just be another set of morons and on and on and on. I am not sure this would all be forgotten, we had no proper safe guards its all to clear now. Many want no regulations and that is what we got, no safe guards at all. Don't trust Gov or big biz, sure looks like they all screw us sooner or later

 

[swrest]

The administration is getting exactly what it wants - that being the worst disaster in history.

IF they had acted responsibly this would have just been a simple spill and would have been soon forgotten. As it stands it will mark the beginning of the end of fossil fuels in this country.

This administration has put it's political and environmental agenda ahead of the citizens in the gulf and destroyed an already weakened economy.

Does that come as a surprise.

It's time to vote these morons out!

Yes and it is abouttime we vote new morons in! I'm with you Tony, get these high stepping thinkers on out of here, run them back to the getto where they belong,you are correct it is the beggining of the end of fossil fuels. Cause after all where was the las admin when China was becoming a giant under our noses, watching them get bigger and demand more oil, well hmmmm? MAybe they were sitting back loving the fact that more demand from other countries would create higher $$, and where was the last bunch of cowboys when India became a giant fuel consumption nation? Need to know where, go look at the big retailers, they but tons of goods from China and India, medications are mass produced by India, make a country prosper and they buy cars boats and what not. It was wonderful when we were the big dogs on the block, but we are losing the fight, and you the American public are funding it. There is so much oil in the Artic National reserve that it is ridicoulous, the Gulf of Mexico is the same, loaded with oil, off the coast of Cali is the same. Why dont we take it all for our selves? Cause it doent make sens for companies like BP, Conoco, Exxon Mobile and the like to drill here with the burdoning of regulationa and tarrifs. Oh, thats right the regualtions are hand fed to the govt via thier own standards, and the tarrifs, oh yea we have none, but we do incentivise them to take action either. Go sell the crude to China and the ill do what ever the oil guys want, need deeper ports, noproblem, need a pipeline ok, you got it. And guess who builds those pipelines and ports, uncle dick and his merry bunch of ex patriots.

And I hardly think that this spill is ruining the fishing in the gulf, maybe we should look at China and south Asis (vietman) they farm most of our seafood anyway, and guess what we all buy it, just like thatburger you eat at mcdonalds is grown in brazil, that fish you eat at red lobster or buy at the store is from just about any place else then the gulf region, now the local markets may be affected by the spill, the rest of the world is not really affected, has the price of fish gone up around you? Well not here and I et seafood 3 times a week.

Do we need to get off the fossil fuel deal, of course we do, we should be burning coal, we have the richest supply of it on the planet, we can burn it cleaner, but there is no incentive to do so. Solar, great idea but 18 hours no sun, even the liquid salt plants would cool down so much that they couldnt produce and electricity, same for wind, great idea when there is wind, and the big pwer guys arent going to build and keep open billion dollar power plants just to be a back up. Nuculear is another great choice, it is proficiantand stable, I worked in the nuc' feild for a while, and it is so heavily regulated that mistakes ae almost un heard of. We just need to get the tree huggers on the same page, cause dont kid yourself, those tree huggers all have plugs in thier walls, asphalt shingles on the roof, and a computer they use to print on paper with.

The country needs to stop being so one sided, I see the guy in the GOP stradigize just agains anything that is Dem based, they dont care if it is good for the country, they just want to see the other side fail. and to a much lesser extent that is what Dems do, but more nievly, they just see the GOP as a huge monster that is out to kill the fish, and put more mexicans to work. It would be hard to deny that the GOP wants the no imigration policy cause they love that cheap labor, and the DEMS want some more votes, but ultimately if we could stop worrying about the elections and take the task at hand we CAN move forward,

It is a shame seeing on tv the restaurants around the country taking oysters off their menu's, seeing the places that process the oysters closing and restaurants and hotels laying off staff all around the gulf. It is a disaster and a shame that the gubberment didn't do anything more, faster to deal with this.

The way that they are handling this crisis almost looks like they have an agenda that is not being talked about.

With all the technology out there, all the manpower we have, all the boats, barges and ships out there, if they would untie all the right hands this crisis could be handled a lot better and faster.

 

[Tony Shelton]

We need a revolution in this country.

I know all the bellyachers who just like to complain are going to say that something like that will never occur in this day and age. But the same belly aching was going on when Thomas Paine was writing - The same whiners were telling the founding fathers that a Revolution was out of the question! But they DID have a revolution and it produced the FINEST country this planet has ever seen.

It was built on the rights of individuals, not groups.

It was built on individual responsibility, not "How much can my senator bring back to my state!!!!!!!!".

It was built on CHRISTIAN moral authority. That was the FINAL authority. There always has to be a FINAL authority. It begins in this country with each man having "certain unalienable rights" from his "creator". We are about to appoint a supreme court justice who, when asked about those "God given" rights stated that she didn't have any opinion on any rights outside those GRANTED by the US CONSTITUTION! To her, we HAVE NO RIGHTS unless the government has GIVEN them to us!!!

That is what this country has come to. People are too lazy to look up the truth. It has become perfectly acceptable to teach children LIES about the past of our country just to push though a "hate America" agenda. Our children think Christopher Columbus was a mass murderer! I just had a grown woman ask me if Columbus was so good then why did he purposefully spread disease trying to wipe out the Native Americans!!!!!!! This is what is being taught in our schools!

Shelly has lived all over the world. She literally hated EVERY single place she's lived except for here. But yesterday, she floored me.....She asked me where I would like to go if we decided to leave the US. You've got to understand, this was a BIG thing for her to ask.

She and I are both fed up with politicians who will lie right to our faces just to obtain the power that comes with the office.

We are fed up with police who shoot/run over/ beat citizens in this country on a daily basis and suffer zero consequences.

We are fed up with the news media that took a proposed law in Uganda aimed at equalizing the value of males and females by proposing that convicted rapist of young boys (very common there) suffer the death penalty just like rapists of young girls have for years. The media turned it into a "UGANDA IS PASSING A LAW TO KILL ALL GAYS" event and struck the law down.

We are fed up with our tax money being spent to pay for hundreds of births of illegals children, when my own son made $6,000 the year his child was born but was turned down for medicaid after 14 months of supplying paperwork over and over again.

WE ARE FED UP!

I'm willing to do what it takes. Our country has been hijacked by a bunch of nutcases and I'm willing to fight to get it back. The founding fathers would have been hanged for their actions if they were caught. Where are men like that today????????????

FED UP!

 

[jlpressure]

I live in a vacation area, every year the price of gas goes up late spring through summer. Not this year, its less than it was this winter. All a big game, what a shame