BREAKING: MILES OF OIL CONTAINMENT BOOM in Warehouse- Just Sitting- Waiting For BP or US to Collect (Video!)
Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, June 8, 2010, 4:25 PM
UNBELIEVABLE! How’s this for HOPE AND CHANGE?
Tar blobs began washing up on Florida’s white sand beaches near Pensacola this past weekend. Crude oil has already been reported along barrier islands in Alabama and Mississippi, and has impacted about 125 miles of Louisiana coastline.
It didn’t have to be this way.
(Reuters)
There are miles of floating oil containment boom in warehouse right now and the manufacturer Packgen says it can make lots more on short notice.
There’s just one problem… No one will come get it.
Maine Governor Baldacci visits Packgen to see the manufacturing of Oil Containment Booms, as well as lend his support to the people of Packgen and the Gulf Coast.
Gregory Sullivan at Pajamas Media reported, via Instapundit:
John Lapoint of Packgen in Auburn, Maine, says he’s got plenty of floating oil containment boom and can make lots more on short notice. There’s just one problem: no one will buy it from him.
He’s already had a representative from BP visit his factory and inspect his product. The governor of Maine, John Baldacci, visited the facility and made a video plea to no one in particular to close the deal. Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins wrote a letter on May 21 to the secretary of the Interior, the administrator of NOAA, and the commandant of the Coast Guard to alert them to the existence of Packgen, their supply of boom, and their demonstrated capacity to make more. I have no idea if those are the correct persons and agencies to notify about the manufacturing capacity and the availability of boom. One wonders if the senators know.
While it is not easy to clean up an ocean oil spill, it is not a complicated procedure. In the open ocean, chemicals can be sprayed on slicks to try to disperse them. For the most part, oil floats, so it can sometimes be ignited and burned to lessen the amount that might reach a more sensitive area than the middle of an ocean. Out in open water, you can use booms (temporary floating barriers), but the wind and wave action makes it pretty difficult to place them and keep them there. When you get in closer to shore, where the oil is likely to do the most damage but the water is generally calmer, the best way to deal with it is to place flexible booms in the water, against which the oil will collect, and then run skimmers, a sort of pump that vacuums up and separates the oil from the water. Then you mop up what makes it to the shore as best you can.
…Oil collected against a boom is fairly easy to process and recycle. Sorbent booms, designed to collect oil at the water’s edge, are made from materials that absorb oil but not water — unlike hair. Oil full of hair or straw lapping against a shoreline is a HazMat nightmare. And sorbent boom is not in short supply anyway.
…Packgen’s main business is not making oil boom. They make specialty packaging materials for shipping and storing environmentally sensitive materials. But when Packgen’s president, John Lapoint, saw the BP oil spill in the news, he understood right away that to have any hope of containing the oil drifting towards the shoreline, lots of floating boom would be necessary.
It didn’t have to be this way. Our southern shores could have been spared.
If Barack Obama really wants to find some ass to kick. It may be his own.
Is anyone else reminded of this photo?
UPDATE: Allahpundit added:
Remember, Jindal was demanding millions of feet of boom just a week or so after the rig exploded and, as of May 24, was still millions of feet short.
It didn’t have to be this way.
(AFP)
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Do you get it yet? commented:
The oil spill and the lack of urgency serves a purpose in the commie green agenda.
Joanne commented:
You know it is part of a political agenda when even the environmental nutjobs stay in the woodwork and don’t say a thing about the devastation of an oil spill. If a Republican was President, they would be out and crying bloody murder.
Harry Schell commented:
I don’t no whether to s**t or go blind.
But:
+ I am not going to stop drinking after all.
+ I will never manufacture anything for the government without a contract. Right or wrong, no percentage in betting on “smart” people doing the right thing with any urgency.
Joanne commented:
This is a criminal act not to do everything to protect the shores from the oil – Obama doesn’t seem to have a problem spending millions on his Whitehouse parties, but where is the cash to purchase these containment booms. It is just sickening. This is unbelievable to watch.
unseen commented:
If Barack Obama really wants to find some ass to kick. It may be his own. In that Light Palin is a happy warrior tonight has she kicks Obama a new one:
Less Talkin’, More Kickin’
50 days in, and we’ve just learned another shocking revelation concerning the Obama administration’s response to the Gulf oil spill. In an interview aired this morning, President Obama admitted that he hasn’t met with or spoken directly to BP’s CEO Tony Hayward. His reasoning: “Because my experience is, when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he’s gonna say all the right things to me. I’m not interested in words. I’m interested in actions.”
First, to the “informed and enlightened” mainstream media: in all the discussions you’ve had with the White House about the spill, did it not occur to you before today to ask how the CEO-to-CEO level discussions were progressing to remedy this tragedy? You never cease to amaze. (Kind of reminds us of the months on end when you never bothered to ask if the President was meeting with General McChrystal to talk about our strategy in Afghanistan.)
Second, to fellow baffled Americans: this revelation is further proof that it bodes well to have some sort of executive experience before occupying the Oval Office (as if the painfully slow response to the oil spill, confusion of duties, finger-pointing, lack of preparedness, and inability to grant local government simple requests weren’t proof enough). The current administration may be unaware that it’s the President’s duty, meeting on a CEO-to-CEO level with Hayward, to verify what BP reports. In an interview a few weeks ago with Greta Van Susteren, I noted that based on my experience working with oil execs as an oil regulator and then as a Governor, you must verify what the oil companies claim – because their perception of circumstances and situations dealing with public resources and public trust is not necessarily shared by those who own America’s public resources and trust. I was about run out of town in Alaska for what critics decried at the time as my “playing hardball with Big Oil,” and those same adversaries (both shortsighted Repubs and Dems) continue to this day to try to discredit my administration’s efforts in holding Big Oil accountable to operate ethically and responsibly.
Mr. President: with all due respect, you have to get involved, sir. The priorities and timeline of an oil company are not the same as the public’s. You cannot outsource the cleanup and the responsibility and the trust to BP and expect that the legitimate interests of Americans adversely affected by this spill will somehow be met.
White House: have you read this morning’s Washington Post? Not to pile it on BP, but there’s an extensive report chronicling the company’s troubling history:
“BP has had more high-profile accidents than any other company in recent years. And now, with the disaster in the gulf, independent experts say the pervasiveness of the company’s problems, in multiple locales and different types of facilities, is striking.
‘They are a recurring environmental criminal and they do not follow U.S. health safety and environmental policy,’ said Jeanne Pascal, a former EPA lawyer who led its BP investigations.”
And yet just 10 days prior to the explosion, the Obama administration’s regulators gave the oil rig a pass, and last year the Obama administration granted BP a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) exemption for its drilling operation.
These decisions and the resulting spill have shaken the public’s confidence in the ability to safely drill. Unless government appropriately regulates oil developments and holds oil executives accountable, the public will not trust them to drill, baby, drill. And we must! Or we will be even more beholden to, and controlled by, dangerous foreign regimes that supply much of our energy. This has been a constant refrain from me. As Governor of Alaska, I did everything in my power to hold oil companies accountable in order to prove to the federal government and to the nation that Alaska could be trusted to further develop energy rich land like ANWR and NPR-A. I hired conscientious Democrats and Republicans (because this sure shouldn’t be a partisan issue) to provide me with the best advice on how we could deal with what was a corrupt system of some lawmakers and administrators who were hesitant to play hardball with some in the oil field business. (Remember the Alaska lawmakers, public decision-makers, and business executives who ended up going to jail as a result of the FBI’s investigations of oily corruption.)
As the aforementioned article notes, BP’s operation in Alaska would hurt our state and waste public resources if allowed to continue. That’s why my administration created the Petroleum Systems Integrity Office (PSIO) when we saw proof of improper maintenance of oil infrastructure in our state. We had to verify. And that’s why we instituted new oversight and held BP and other oil companies financially accountable for poor maintenance practices. We knew we could partner with them to develop resources without pussyfooting around with them. As a CEO, it was my job to look out for the interests of Alaskans with the same intensity and action as the oil company CEOs looked out for the interests of their shareholders.
I learned firsthand the way these companies operate when I served as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC). I ended up resigning in protest because my bosses (the Governor and his chief of staff at the time) wouldn’t support efforts to clean up the corruption involving improper conflicts of interest with energy companies that the state was supposed to be watching. (I wrote about this valuable learning experience in my book, “Going Rogue”.) I felt guilty taking home a big paycheck while being reduced to sitting on my thumbs – essentially rendered ineffective as a supervisor of a regulatory agency in charge of nearly 20% of the U.S. domestic supply of energy.
My experience (though, granted, I got the message loud and clear during the campaign that my executive experience managing the fastest growing community in the state, and then running the largest state in the union, was nothing compared to the experiences of a community organizer) showed me how government officials and oil execs could scratch each others’ backs to the detriment of the public, and it made me ill. I ran for Governor to fight such practices. So, as a former chief executive, I humbly offer this advice to the President: you must verify. That means you must meet with Hayward. Demand answers.
In the interview today, the President said: “I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick.”
Please, sir, for the sake of the Gulf residents, reach out to experts who have experience holding oil companies accountable. I suggested a few weeks ago that you start with Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources, led by Commissioner Tom Irwin. Having worked with Tom and his DNR and AGIA team led by Marty Rutherford, I can vouch for their integrity and expertise in dealing with Big Oil and overseeing its developments. We’ve all lived and worked through the Exxon-Valdez spill. They can help you. Give them a call. Or, what the heck, give me a call.
And, finally, Mr. President, please do not punish the American public with any new energy tax in response to this tragedy. Just because BP and federal regulators screwed up that doesn’t mean the rest of us should get punished with higher taxes at the pump and attached to everything petroleum products touch.
- Sarah Palin
jim commented:
We know this vile narcissist can kiss his own ass, but kick his own ass??
He’s not about to let this crisis go to waste.
Lenore commented:
The spill was BP’s fault. The oil coming to shore is Obama’s fault.
jetstream commented:
I want to throw up. May God’s wrath fall swiftly on the perpetrator-in-chief, his handlers, and his minions who are deliberately spewing their vile evil across this (formerly?) blessed country.
UpChuck.Liberals commented:
” I can vouch for their integrity and expertise in dealing with Big Oil and overseeing its developments. ” The words INTEGRITY & EXPERTISE are not part of this administrations vocabulary. Now, golf, party, neat airplane rides, blaming someone else, that they can do.
ogee commented:
OOOMPH! This is no accident.
Everyone: Look at this! pass it on! Corexit is ruining the environment and farms near the Gulf
http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-mystery-crop-damage,0,187535.story.
Yeah compete with China. I refuse to buy ANYTHING made in China. Check the labels.
IMPEACH THE UOTUS NOW!
bill-tb commented:
Government is so good at … ass kicking. But he is incompetent.
The proof of incompetence is all around us.
But don’t worry, your health-care rations will be waiting for you, in a warehouse somewhere, as soon as we can find it and get approval and… It’s just now we have no doctors.
And isn’t it ironic how the oil spill has proved that big government incompetence is the most prolific product of big government produces.
xxx commented:
The seed of Satan has ordered no deployment of U.S. people to help their states and enviroments. He told then he will procecute them The Liberal media is supporting Satan’s seed in this endevor. It is criminal.
M Conservative Operative commented:
He needs to face facts. He needs to resign or kick his own ass, or both. M
ogee commented:
If the truth were known, we would likely find that SOBama is being paid to be silent and not respond. Ya’ think?
ogee commented:
After reading nincumpoop Pelosi’s childish tweets “I may finally get to read the healthcare Bill to see what’s in it this weekend”, the one from Sarah is a relief. Not everyone is braindead.
WRONG USE OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.
K~Bob commented:
“Oil full of hair or straw lapping against a shoreline is a HazMat nightmare.”
Yeah, because oil lapping against the shore by itself is less of a hazmat nightmare. And oil in my tea is not really a problem.
Les Hardie commented:
When the feds hire people at $12/hour to slouch around and pick at little tarballs on the sand, nothing will get done. The “workers” will do as little “work” as possible, and the gov’t will be more interested in processing their paperwork and deducting payroll taxes than getting real results.
How about using old-fashioned market incentives? Pay cash to everybody—kids, students, the unemployed — who scoops the tarballs into plastic garbage bags. Put collection spots every half mile on the beach. They bring their bag, it gets weighed, they get paid right there. Pay them $25 for every 50 pounds of oil junk they take off the beach. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people would love to earn real money for real work. And they would do real work, not stand around and pretend. This is so simple, so obvious, it ought to be tried!
Kenny Solomon commented:
This is just a guess on my part as to why the government hasn’t used their product……. Mr. Lapoint’s company is non-union and NOT owned by a one-armed minority transgender midget seeking bailout money to hire some poor unfortunate undocumented workers.
What ?
Bitter ?
Me ?
Never.
Kenny Solomon
Who’s ass can I kick ?
Blindside commented:
Bush’s fault. The picture of the submerged buses proves it!
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