How Not To Contain An Oil Spill

Writing for the Financial Post (Canada), Lawrence Solomon details how the United States rejected offers to contain the oil spill from the Netherlands. The article, called Avertible Catastrophe, goes a long way toward explaining why the Empire is in Decline. Let's go back to May 3rd when President Obama finally got a first-hand look at the environmental carnage in the Gulf—

"From Day One we have prepared and planned for the worst, even as we hoped for the best," a rain-soaked Mr. Obama told a small group of reporters. "And while we have prepared and reacted aggressively, I'm not going to rest ... or be satisfied until the leak is stopped at the source, the oil on the Gulf is contained and cleaned up, and the people of this region are able to go back to their lives and their livelihoods."

Long before the President assured us that he would not sleep until the leak was plugged and the spill contained, the Dutch stepped up to the plate—

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 meters 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.

How did the Empire respond to the Dutch offer to help? Thanks, but no thanks—

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 Geert 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.

Thus on May 5th, two days after our indefatigable President told us he would not rest until the spill was resolved, the United States had not only rejected the Dutch offer to help, but also the offers of 12 other governments, most of whom had superior expertise and equipment.

The President briefs the media: "Americans don't need Dutch help to keep this beach clean... we'll do it the way we've always done it, with American know-how and that "can-do" spirit which made us great...
Are there any other questions?"

Wait, this story gets much, much better—

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.

Crazy? You betcha, but we are the Empire. We have rules & regulations. There's our way or the highway. Sure we're completely unprepared! Sure we have inferior equipment! Sure we have no idea what we're doing! But despite all these failings, our arrogance has no limits.

We'd rather have American oil spilling into American water befouling American beaches than have this less than 99.9985% pure Dutch water pouring into our Gulf of Mexico. We'd rather have incompetent, poorly trained American workers using oil skimming equipment they don't understand than have guys named Geert or Weird operate equipment the Dutch invented. Got it?

In other words, no sacrifice is big enough to save misplaced American pride. If a few fisheries or wetlands or beaches must be needlessly soaked in crude oil to save American Face, so be it.

This is our Imperial Decline in a nutshell. Katrina or Deepwater Horizon, Republicans or Democrats, FEMA or the Minerals Management Service, Obama or W—none of this matters. Read my post America, A Faltering Empire. Our get up and go has got up and went.

Comments

[Tony Weddle]

Wow. Wow! Wow!!!

This needs to be made widespread knowledge through the US media. The US people need to be made aware of what their arrogant attitude is doing to their environment, in the name of that god blessed nation.

The knives should be out for Obama, not Hayward.