I'm not talking about the logistics of getting the hay to the spill, or whether that much hay is obtainable. I'm concerned with the gigantic mess that would be washed ashore. Assuming my calculations are even remotely accurate, the debris would be gargantuan. One bale of hay, uncompressed and tossed about like salad by the waves, then glued together with sticky black oil tar, would take up four times more volume than the original 10 cubic feet per bale. That amounts to 71 million cubic feet of matted hay, which is a wall of debris 20 feet high, 20 feet wide, and 34 MILES long on the shores of Galveston Bay. Mixed in with the sticky mess would be the rotting corpses of marine life that has been trapped.
And that's just one day's worth of hay. Even if the proportion of hay was far less than what was used in the video, the sheer volume needed to absorb so much oil makes the idea absurd.
the sheer volume needed to absorb so much oil makes the idea absurd. I don't think anyone is suggesting we cover the entire Gulf of Mexico in six inches of straw. How 'bout we focus on specific critical areas that need to be protected (spawning grounds, vulnerable beaches, etc.). Right now we have a gigantic mess and right now there don't seem to be any real good ideas on how to protect anything. I think the current strategy is to hope it just goes someplace else.