America should be really embarrassed at our government.
Avoidable catastropheBy Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post
Jun. 26, 2010
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 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.
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 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. 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 U.S. 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 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.
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 labor 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 berms 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 berms. 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 focused 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.
Posts
5 comments:
Oh I get it.
It's all the fault of the labor unions.
Nicely played, Solomon; nicely played.
What's this I hear?
The commie-faggot-surrender-monkey-pinko-socialist EUROPEAN way is better? Some TAX-PAYER FUNDED, GOVERNMENT-RUN way is better?
You DO understand that the Dutch have higher taxes, more government managment and regulation, and strong unions, right?
But taxes, government, and unions are bad, right?
Normal people will see a contradiction here.
American right-wingers will cover their ears and go "lalalalalalalal unions are bad lalalalala taxes are bad lalalalala Obama sucks lalalala..."
Wow I hope Sarah Palin doesn't read this. Someone isn't being very patriotic, ie: "yadda yadda, America is the best at everything, yadda yadda."
As ususal if they can attack Dem's over something then their "patriotism" goes out the window FAST.
Sorry Bebe, but Palin, did hear about this. After BHO gave his oval office talk, Palin babbled out something that made no sense other than it included the words Dutch ships and US labor unions wouldn't let "help."
I'm not clear on the veracity of this "story." Whether the Dutch actually have technology like this and/or whether they were kept away bc of whatever... unions, environmentalists, the usual leftie suspects.
All I do know is that rightwingers I know have been ranting about this recently. Clearly the "story" is making the rounds; it would be interesting to know how accurate it is. I can't find anything to confirm or deny this story except from a bunch of rabidly rightwing sites.
I've read or heard nothing about it on the mainstream news, which doesn't mean a lot, but still.... doubtful that this is truthful or at least that it isn't twisted in some way.
And yes: the irony of rightwingers whining about how BHO didn't use a government solution from socialist Holland is completely lost on rightwingers who live only to complain and whine and generally make pests of themselves.
Now the reichwing takes it upon itself to *instruct* citizens to be "embarresse" by our government.
Yet when Michelle Obama stated that she was finally really proud of country, these self-same hypocrtical oafs DECRIED how shameless and gawd-awful Mrs. Obama was for daring to even suggest that she may have not been completely proud of America at all times forever (even when she personally had to endure USA Apartheid, but hey! why should African Americans complain about that???).
So what we have here is the typical RepubliKKKan party double standard and hypocrisy on parade. Now because there is a Democrat (and a BLACK one at that, oh the uppity temerity) as US Pres, US citizens should all NOW be "embarressed at our government."
Please! Wake up sheeples. This is called propoganda. And not even very good propoganda.
Post a Comment