When the heck is the media going to wake up, and start putting pressure on the O’admin and his enviro Nazi EPA and Lisa Jackson? Just as the the Costner centrifuges, and their newly finished barge have faced delays, obstruction, and limitations with EPA regulations over bilge water discharge, the converted Taiwanese tanker, “A Whale”, faces the same dilemma.
The Taiwanese-flagged former tanker named the A Whale is the length of 3 ½ football fields and stands 10 stories high. It just emerged from an extensive retrofitting to prepare it specifically for the gulf, where officials hope it will be able to suck up as much as 21 million gallons of oil-fouled water per day.
The ship looks like a typical tanker, but it takes in contaminated water through 12 vents on each side of the bow. The oil is then supposed to be separated from the water and transferred to another vessel. The water is channeled back into the sea.
But the ship has never been tested, and many questions remain about how it will operate. For instance, the seawater retains trace amounts of oil, even after filtering, so the Environmental Protection Agency will have to approve allowing the treated water back into the gulf.
“This is a no-brainer,” said Louisiana State University environmental sciences professor Ed Overton. “You’re bringing in really dirty, oily water, and you’re putting back much cleaner water.”
Yes, definitely should be a “no brainer”. But then, “no brains” is what we have when you’re dealing with agencies, appointees and a POTUS who remains anal on environmental regulations… even in the face of catastrophic events.
The EPA as an obstacle continues to be a cleverly hidden secret from the nation’s eyes. But Ms. Jackson’s powerful agency is not alone in having reservations about “A Whale” and it’s operation. Former Coast Guard officer, Dennis Bryant, also expressed skeptism.
“I don’t think the concept is that bad, but I don’t see how in this situation it’s going to be a significant player,” said Dennis Bryant, a former Coast Guard officer who worked on implementing regulations required by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 before retiring and starting a maritime consulting business in Gainesville, Fla.
“In a case like the Exxon Valdez spill, where you had a lot of oil on the surface in a confined area, a vessel like this could have gone in and sucked up a whole lot,” he said. “But in the Gulf, where the oil is pretty well dispersed over a vast area, I don’t see how it’s going to make a large dent.”
Pardon me for interjecting a snifter of common sense here, but using this large tanker at the well head to grab a majority of heavy concentration is a good start. Using the Costner barges/deepwater ships as a central clearing station, servicing the VOO skimmers further off shore (so they don’t make continuous trips back and forth to shore to empty their skimmed loads) fills another need. The goal is to do the majority of clean up at sea… a task that has proven difficult without the EPA and Coast Guard’s sign off of approvals for sundry reasons. And ultimately, both those agencies will have to give the final nod before the Taiwan tanker can perform as designed in the Gulf waters…. regulations and bureaucracy that BP has no power to bypass.
The tanker’s owner, Taiwanese shipping firm TMT Group and CEO and founder Nobu Su, ordered the tanker to be retrofitted in Portugal as a skimmer after the GOM (Gulf of Mexico) oil spill. It then immediately sailed to the Gulf, and arrived June 30th, ready for action… never waiting for a contract commitment from BP, or contacting the US regulation agencies for compliance.
It’s now deployed during a testing phase to see if it can do what TMT claims. But Michelle Wiese Bockmann, the markets editor for Lloyd’s List, smells another motive. The vessel, completed earlier this year, has had trouble lining up business. Bockmann suggests that the marketing savvy CEO may be using this as an advertising ploy.
And Michelle Wiese Bockmann, markets editor for the seafaring chronicle Lloyd’s List, speculated that TMT CEO Su, who owns 51 percent of the privately held company, may be using the attention focused on the BP disaster to publicize his new vessel.
“He likes to have an air of mystery and be seen as very influential,” she said. “And when he wants publicity, he’s very good at getting it.”
Excuse me, but so what? If the tanker does the job, it strikes me as a marketing move made in heaven. An idle tanker, an owner who took the initiative to fill a need, and relatively rapid response on the scene to boot. (taking into consideration the retrofit time, and at sea travel time to arrive in the Gulf).
Since the smaller Vessels of Opportunity (VOOs) have been sidelined since June 27th to 29th for rough weather due to Hurricane Alex, only the larger vessels have been able to stay on site with any attempts at skimming. The storm also delayed preparations for the Helix Producer’s arrival at the well site. The Helix was to be third production vessel to be hooked up to the new vertical riser, increasing production of oil collected from the well. Even today, the Helix is still besieged by too much wave action to successfully hook up to the riser. The ship has been onsite at the well since June 27th, but until the waves are three feet swells or less, connection is in pause mode.
In light of all the weather caused delays – atop the bureaucratic ones – I’d say that any vessel that can continue it’s task, especially thru the Gulf tropical summer weather, should be welcomed with open arms.
And these slowpokes in the media – only now figuring out the obstruction of EPA – ought to slam le femme Jackson and Obama up against the talking head circuit wall, and force a blanket waiver of that bilge water dischange regulation for the Deepwater Horizon clean up efforts. This is simply beyond absurdity anymore.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.
@ Bees
I still really don’t know how to answer your question because it does not make a whole lot of sense to me. You are trying to connect a lot of things that don’t have clear connections, as far as I can see.
There is no lava on the sea floor, except where there is a volcanic eruption. We do not have that in the Gulf of Mexico. Whether there is lava under the sea floor or not, I do not know. It is not likely that they would drill into an area where they though they might strike molten lava! Their knowledge is limited, so who knows what is down there that they do not know about.
Tidal action is limited to the the water, and it diminishes with the depth. Thus at the sea floor, there is no tidal action at all, other than a very slight change in pressure, but no fluid motion.
It is really risky to make any blanket statement that end with, “… must surely exist and react to each other.” About things we know so little as this, to say that anything must surely exist is simply not true; we cannot say much of anything with a “must surely” attached to it.
DR.D ; YES kind of you to reply, thank’s bye