Dutch Oil Skimming Ships in the Gulf, but EPA Says No

[amborin]

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-oil-spill-response-team-standby-us-oil-disaster


Dutch oil spill response team on standby for US oil disaster

"Two Dutch companies are on stand-by to help the Americans tackle an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. The two companies use huge booms to sweep and suck the oil from the surface of the sea. The US authorities, however, have difficulties with the method they use.

What do the Dutch have that the Americans don’t when it comes to tackling oil spills at sea? “Skimmers,” answers Wierd Koops, chairman of the Dutch organisation for combating oil spills, Spill Response Group Holland.

The Americans don’t have spill response vessels with skimmers because their environment regulations do not allow it. With the Dutch method seawater is sucked up with the oil by the skimmer. The oil is stored in the tanker and the superfluous water is pumped overboard. But the water does contain some oil residue, and that is too much according to US environment regulations.

US regulations contradictory
Wierd Koops thinks the US approach is nonsense, because otherwise you would have to store the surplus seawater in the tanks as well.
“We say no, you have to get as much oil as possible into the storage tanks and as little water as possible. So we pump the water, which contains drops of oil, back overboard.”

US regulations are contradictory, Mr Knoops stresses. Pumping water back into the sea with oil residue is not allowed. But you are allowed to combat the spill with chemicals so that the oil dissolves in the seawater. In both cases, the dissolved oil is naturally broken down quite quickly.
It is possible the Americans will opt for the Dutch method as the damage the oil spill could cause to the mud flats and salt marshes along the coast is much worse, warns Wetland expert Hans Revier
“You have to make sure you clear up the oil at sea. As soon as the oil reaches the mud flats and salt marshes, it is too late. The only thing you can do then is dig it up. But then the solution is worse than the problem.”

snip

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otherwise......


"The leak in the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico could cause the worst ever oil pollution in the history of the United States. Until now oil platforms have seldom caused major environmental disasters. The biggest environmental disaster caused by an oil platform before now was in March 2001 when the P-36 belonging to Brazil's oil company Petrobras leaked. The oil slick measured 400 square kilometres. By comparison: the Deepwater Horizon spill already covers an area of almost 10,000 square kilometres.

Worst oil disaster until now in US the US tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989, which ran aground in William Sound off Alaska.
In 1978 360 kilometres of the coast of Brittany was polluted with oil from the Liberian tanker Amoco Cadiz, which broke in two.
In 1999 Erika, a tanker registered in Malta, ran into rocks off Brittany and polluted 200 kilometres of the French coastline.
In 1992 the Spanish Galician coast was polluted after the Greek tanker Aegean Sea broke in two and exploded.

Piper AlphaThe worst ever oil platform disaster was the explosion on the North sea platform Piper Alpha in July 1988, almost 200 kilometres north of Aberdeen in Scotland. 167 people were killed and the damage amounted to almost a billion euros. 62 workers survived, many of them by diving into the sea....."

[lonestarnot]

1. Anything is better than nothing at this point. Containment is not going to last long.

Drops are better than balls.

[amborin]

2. think so, too!

[lonestarnot]

3. Dutch could teach us a thing or two apparently. We're just watching it grow.

[LiberalAndProud]

4. This policy doesn't even make sense.

Environmental regulations that say you can't take oil out if you can't take ALL of it out?

And they know they're being stupid. But they can't break stupid rules without jeopardizing their jobs, I guess.

[Recursion]

9. Not quite

Environmental regulations that say you can't take oil out if you can't take ALL of it out?

As I'm reading it, the regulations say you can't take oil out if you then pump some of it back in.

As SOP for normal small-scale spills, that makes sense to me. In the face of a disaster like this, anything that decreases the amount of oil in hte water sounds like a good thing to me.

[amborin]

13. especially when they're letting BP use cosmetic only dispersants now

[LARED]

10. This is SO typical of environmental regulation

I've worked in the chemical industry for many years. One thing you learn pretty fast is environmental regulations often make no sense whatsoever, are often contradictory, and often force you to make bad decisions to comply. Also they don't care if it's a bad decision as long as you are in compliance.

The only difference is that the bureaucratic stupidity often found in the EPA is now on display for the whole world to see.

[Rex]

5. Believe me Wierd, the US approach to many things is nonsense.

Welcome to America.

[BrightKnight]

6. skimmers have to be much better than spraying tons of detergent.

Rules should be changed to fit the situation. An exception could easily be made for very large spills.

The Dutch probably just want the oil but it doesn't matter.

[PufPuf23]

7. The Dutch are smart, experienced, and pragmatic;

the USA is not a peer of the Dutch at present in this manner and we as a nation and culture owe much -- good and bad -- to the Dutch.

I am blown away that this FUBAR was done under a Categorical Exception under the Nixon admin's National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) modeled after the CA Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), both enacted in the 70s.

This is a total absurdity. Note CE's have been granted to the oil industry post the gulf gusher.

Even the big name environmental groups were blind.

Questions: (I am retired and not to date): Do CEs from the DOI's MMS (like EAs and EISs in general) need to be published in the Federal Register and, if so, what is the response period under implementing regs?

For an example, I sold and gifted fee property in 2008 to an Indian Tribe that included arch and active ceremonial sites over 10,000 years of use, a permitted gravel/gold mine, and sites for HUD Indian housing. The HUD funding required environmental assessment (under NEPA) and two public comment periods for 30 days after publications in the Federal Register. NEPA works lowest to greatest concern: CE > EA > EIS. The process can take years.

My transaction was less than $1,000,000 and 300 acres (of albeit sensitive and unique land).

The use of an CE for the gulf gusher means federal line officers signed off that there was less need for public, scientific, and other analytic review than my land sale and +/- 40% gift of already Federally designated sacred sites which required an EA (more review and transparency under NEPA) for the HUD funding for Indian housing (with the bonus of environmentally sensitive and culturally sacred/Fed designated adjacent land as a gift).

One should be able to see the signature of every line officer and supporting document under the NEPA process that allowed this to happen; implementing regulations; and technical and contracting managers of the project.

I did not support the appointments of Salazar (nor Vilsack at Agriculture).

Edit to add:

The use of oil skimming ships, corraling and burning, and various chemical dispersing adgents as well as contingency plans in general are part of an EA or EIS or should be tiered to a higher level document for the CE that the MMS of the DOI issued to BP.

[amborin]

8. this

is too much for me to digest right now but i've bookmarked it; thanks for posting!

[kenny blankenship]

11. We're Americans dammit!

We will fuck this up on our own, thank you Johann.

[ljm2002]

12. Salazar (and by extension, Obama) has made other exceptions...

...waiving environmental studies, etc. on the Gulf for the oil companies. Maybe he could jump in here and make an exception?

This is such a clusterf***.

[greencharlie]

14. time for admin to step in...

BP ain't doin' the job!!!! Get the right help in there, NOW!