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AVERTIBLE CATASTROPHELawrence Solomon, Financial Post · Jun. 26, 2010
http://www.financialpost.com/Avertible+catastrophe/3203808/ story.html#ixzz0s6dPxbnI
Some are attuned to the possibility of looming catastrophe and know how to head it off. Others are unprepared for risk and even unable to get their priorities straight when risk turns to reality.
The Dutch fall into the first group. Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. "Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour," Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.
To protect against the possibility that its equipment wouldn't capture all the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch also offered to prepare for the US. a contingency plan to protect Louisiana's marshlands with sand barriers. One Dutch research institute specializing in deltas, coastal areas and rivers, in fact, developed a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long sand dikes within three weeks.
The Dutch know how to handle maritime emergencies. In the event of an oil spill, The Netherlands government, which owns its own ships and high-tech skimmers, gives an oil company 12 hours to demonstrate it has the spill in hand. If the company shows signs of unpreparedness, the government dispatches its own ships at the oil company's expense. "If there's a country that's experienced with building dikes and managing water, it's the Netherlands," says Geert Visser, the Dutch consul general in Houston.
In sharp contrast to Dutch preparedness before the fact and the Dutch instinct to dive into action once an emergency becomes apparent, witness the American reaction to the Dutch offer of help. The US. 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. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the US. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment --unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.
Why does neither the U.S. government nor US. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. 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.
When ships in U.S. waters take in oil-contaminated water, they are forced to store it. 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. "Given the fact that there is so much oil on a daily basis coming in, you do not have that much time to protect the marshlands," he says, perplexed that the U.S. government could be so focussed on side issues with the entire Gulf Coast hanging in the balance
Then again, perhaps he should not be all that perplexed at the American tolerance for turning an accident into a catastrophe. When the Exxon Valdez oil tanker accident occurred off the coast of Alaska in 1989, a Dutch team with clean-up equipment flew in to Anchorage airport to offer their help. To their amazement, they were rebuffed and told to go home with their equipment. The Exxon Valdez became the biggest oil spill disaster in U.S. history--until the BP Gulf spill.
- Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers.
Thanks, A.M. for both items.
UPDATE :
This just came in:
US to Accept Help on Oil Disaster
Tammuz 18, 5770, 30 June 10 10:32
The State Department said in a press release that the U.S. is working out the particulars of the help that has been accepted. More than 30 countries and international organizations have offered to help with the spill. Washington has reportedly not yet made a final decision on most of the offers. The spill is already being called one of the greatest environmental disasters in history
Let me see: how many days since the beginning of the crisis? About 70 days. This is how long Obama and his minions let the disaster progress, destroy the Gulf area, and endanger the whole world irreparably, before accepting help. What should we call this: aggravated criminal negligence?
Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, June 29, 2010, 6:09 AM
It took Barack Obama 1 day to fly General McChrystal halfway around the world to the White House to fire him for insulting remarks his staff made about the president and Bite-me Joe Biden in a teen magazine.But, it’s now been 70 days since the BP oil gusher started spewing hundreds of thousands of crude from the Gulf floor and there still is no plan in place to prevent the crude oil from destroying the southern coast.
Onlookers stare at a huge mass of oil that came ashore on Pensacola Beach on June 23. The water is closed to the public. (Tampa Bay.com)
Hat Tip Brian B.
It didn’t have to be this way. The Dutch have equipment that would have prevented any oil from reaching shore but the federal government wouldn’t allow them into the Gulf.
There’s more:
** The feds only accepted assistance from 5 of 28 countries a month after the disaster.
** It took the Obama Administration 53 days to accept help from the Dutch and British.
** It took them 58 days to mobilize the US military to the Gulf.
** The feds shut down crude-sucking barges due to fire extinguisher concerns.
** The Obama Administration ignored oil boom manufacturers that have miles of product stockpiled in their warehouses.
** They only have moved 31 of 2,000 oil skimmers to the disaster area off of Florida.
** Florida hired an additional 5 skimmer boats to operate off its coast due to federal inaction.
** There are no skimmer boats off the coast of Mississippi.
** The massive A-Boat skimmer won’t be allowed to join the cleanup effort until the Coast Guard and the EPA figure out whether it meets their standards.
** The feds shut down sand berm dredging off the Louisiana coast.
** The president continues to hit the golf course, ball games, hold BBQ’s and party while the crude oil washes up on shore.
That’s what you get when you elect a community organizer as president.
President Obama’s Dishonesty, Ineptitude On Display
I wish commentators would stop saying Obama is inept, naïve, mistaken, lacking in understanding, etc. He knows exactly what he is doing. He is destroying the USA and the West and he is doing a brilliant job of it. Look at what he has accomplished in only a year and a half. He is not inept. He is evil.
contributed by Jack, with the above comment.
Make sure to read and watch the previous BP posts, searching under label, "BP", starting June 11, 2010. Lots and lots of information there.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/philadelphia-s-heat-hits-record-breaking-highs-20752628
Addendum and update:
Just as Bibi is being pressured severely by Rome via Obama and the queen's visit at the UN, the East Coast experiences deadly heat, the worst in 15 years. Another "coincidence"?
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