Posted on 06/29/2010 7:42:55 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The National Incident Command and the Federal On Scene Coordinator have determined that there is a resource need for boom and skimmers that can be met by offers of assistance from foreign governments and international bodies.
The United States will accept 22 offers of assistance from 12 countries and international bodies, including two high speed skimmers and fire containment boom from Japan. We are currently working out the particular modalities of delivering the offered assistance. Further details will be forthcoming once these arrangements are complete…
The Department has released a chart of offers of assistance that the U.S. has received from other governments and international bodies. The chart is updated as necessary to include any additional offers of assistance and decisions on accepting the offers. The chart is posted on the State Department Web site at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/143488.pdf
Follow the link and look at the chart to see how many offers were still “under consideration” as of a few hours ago. The announcement comes two weeks after the Coast Guard acknowledged that more skimmers were needed and, of course, 67 days after the first offers of foreign aid started trickling in.
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 U.S. 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…
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. 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.
If you’re not tearing at your hair after reading that, read this report from the New Orleans Times-Picayune about federal red tape keeping other skimmers out of the gulf. And not just foreign skimmers, either: For instance, thanks to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, you need minimum levels of certain equipment aboard (like booms) or else it’s no go. This is where we’re at after weeks of oil gushing at a rate of around one Exxon Valdez every three or four days.
Here’s the perfect ad to polish this all off. As Ace says, simply brutal.
Oil Spill Timeline from RightChange on Vimeo.
DU`ers are hailing the Emperor`s magnificent leadership for finally accepting some help.
Will the A-whale ever get to do the job it was built for?
Sure, that’s what they say today. But tomorrow, they will change their minds. The Japanese ships will make it as far as Hawaii before the Coast Guard orders them to stay in port until further notice.
And most -if not all - will help us far more than the Obamaloon clown-O-dent has done.
The Obamaloon himself is the original oil spill.
I notice they don’t give names, they just say:
“National Incident Command and the Federal On Scene Coordinator”
so who are these fools, I like to have names.
Barry has finally unified the country. People on both the left and right are enraged at his complete incompetence at handling the oil spill. Although he’s always seemed over his head to me I’m even surprised at how totally lacking in common sense Barry is about this. This whole episode is outrageous. With the centuries-old knowledge about taming water that the Dutch have, this offer should have been accepted on day one.
Thank Gawd, Obama has been on this from DAY ONE!
But first we needed a hurricane just make sure more oil gets spread around.
With Bush gone all the world respects us so much that Obama just wanted to hold off a bit.
Sounds like the DU is pro big business. Nah! Just a bunch of moonbats that chase the nearest sock full of rocks.
The ‘Rats could have had these matters sorted out in a matter of DAYS.... but no, it’s taken 70 days even to begin to make any PRETENSE of ‘progress’ and who knows how many bureaucratic obstacles will continue to impede rational behavior.
Found this nice site. http://documenteddisaster.blogspot.com/
Wow. It's illegal to clean the water. So Obama was simply obeying the law by doing nothing all this time. I apologize for any incompetence I may have alleged, sir.
well, what type of “help” will they allow?
Rowboats and squeegies?
I hate this president!
I hate this congress (dems and repubs both)!
They are drunk with power and don’t give a crap about the rest of us.
They ALL NEED TO GO!
NOW!
YEP!
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