Who's in charge in the Gulf?

[stevek185]

Interesting story. This makes no sense, what so ever...

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-gov-bobby-jindals-wishes-crude/story?id=10946379&page=1

[Snow Shovel]

Yes, who is in charge? Great question.

The local people aren’t happy with what the federal government is doing to help them. Tried to build a barrier to the approaching oil and the federal government tied up the effort with environmental impact permits and bureaucracy. Tried to put these barges out to skim oil and the Coast Guard kept them at the pier to inspect for life jackets and fire bottles. Anytime the Coast Guard or game warden stopped me for a safety inspection they do their best to minimize interfering with my fishing. I’d think this oil spill is more important than my fishing.

Reminds me of what is going on in Arizona with immigration. Locals aren’t happy with what the feds are doing so they resort to self-help. Feds aren’t happy with that so they threaten lawsuit. Seems the federal government is more worried about proving they are in charge than with solving problems.

[Boz]

The ten scariest words in the English language ~~

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

[Abacodan]

Keep you eye out for some pretty enlightening video on Spanishflytv.com. We spent four hours last Tuesday on my Maverick skiff filming the technology and processes involved in the clean up here in Pensacola. This of course, under the "unified command" based out of Mobile, Alabama. You will clearly see from the video that the tar balls are very concentrated along the tide rip, where it would seem that mother nature is gathering the material for a rather easy recovery, since most of it appeared at the time to be laying on the surface. What is extremely disturbing is that there is a rip line of tar balls out the pass, almost as far as one can see, but yet there is one crew of two small boats, using "hydrophobic" boom, which lays very high on the surface, and does not let water pass through it. The two boats encircle small patches of the tar balls and then attempt to "mop" the tar up on shredded plastic mops. When one becomes tar laden, it is changed out for a clean one. Two boats, six crew members, and basically just two guys mopping. We could not believe how ineffective this was, a total joke.

But there was hope as we witnessed a shrimper slowly towing, or "skimming" with a sectional pieced of the hydrophobic boom material, joined at several points with "D" rings. The hydrophobic boom, even at dead slow speed, was simply riding over the tar balls, or they were passing through the boom at every joint. This was all captured on video.

We figured the total effectiveness of these two operations, the only operations on this tideline full of tar balls, was at best less than 5% effective.

If this is the best we have to through at the problem, the gulf coast is doomed.

We are meeting as a community at 9 AM this morning to discuss various options of taking this into our own hands. County government is out of booms and has not received money for new booms or equipment yet from BP, so that much of the shoreline here in the inland waterways remains unprotected, and even that lined with booms, is certainly not ideally protected. It appears that the "unified command", a top down organizational structure is not dealing with feedback on effectiveness of methodology very well.

This situation, already a catastrophe of epic proportions, could become far worse very quickly with a weather change. It looks like the government may have to get out of the way here very soon if efforts don't change dramatically. We have some pretty enterprising folks in this area of the world, and they are growing extremely impatient.

I would hope the videos should be up in the next week or so.

Yes, who is in charge? Great question.

The local people aren’t happy with what the federal government is doing to help them. Tried to build a barrier to the approaching oil and the federal government tied up the effort with environmental impact permits and bureaucracy. Tried to put these barges out to skim oil and the Coast Guard kept them at the pier to inspect for life jackets and fire bottles. Anytime the Coast Guard or game warden stopped me for a safety inspection they do their best to minimize interfering with my fishing. I’d think this oil spill is more important than my fishing.

Reminds me of what is going on in Arizona with immigration. Locals aren’t happy with what the feds are doing so they resort to self-help. Feds aren’t happy with that so they threaten lawsuit. Seems the federal government is more worried about proving they are in charge than with solving problems.

[240 LTS]

I guess he will appoint a Gulf Czar.

He wants a world government yet he turns away those that offered help very early on.

He went to a baseball game last night.

I know there is no easy answer and anyone that would be POTUS would be hard pressed to get this stopped but he presented himself as the savior of all things wrong and when it come to more than just speeches, nothing happens.

This morning I heard on talk radio there is walrus protection in the Gulf plans.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/49170

They have other ships that ware ready to go help but due to PFD inspections, they are being held up from going.

[reefhunter]

Interesting story. This makes no sense, what so ever...

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-gov-bobby-jindals-wishes-crude/story?id=10946379&page=1

Seems to me the USCG has lost control to the EPA. I would naturally assume they had a safety inspection earlier this year as part of their annual checkups. So, who is pulling the strings now?

This wouldn't have happened in the first place if the BP bean counters had allowed Halliburton to correctly cement the well in February. Instead, you have a mish-mash of Federal bureaucrats all pointing fingers.

Not to get off the subject, but why is Obama telling a private company when they should give their shareholders a dividend? He did it with BP and now RIG (TransOcean). The spin doctors in the "oval" would have you believe he got his wish from BP - but in fact the notice from London was a week ago that the dividend would be suspended as the company's value was half of two months ago. Now he wants RIG to do the same. It's not his business to tell business - esp a foreign business what and who they can pay.

[jws]

Mother Nature is in charge. Man poked the hole in her but she is in charge.

This is a Humpty Dumpty story. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together. Same thing happening here. No person, goverment or company can "fix" the damage. The "fix" does not exist.

The ignorance and arrogance of man has no match in the natural world.

[Chisox]

Interesting story. This makes no sense, what so ever...

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-gov-bobby-jindals-wishes-crude/story?id=10946379&page=1

Seems to me the USCG has lost control to the EPA. I would naturally assume they had a safety inspection earlier this year as part of their annual checkups. So, who is pulling the strings now?

This wouldn't have happened in the first place if the BP bean counters had allowed Halliburton to correctly cement the well in February. Instead, you have a mish-mash of Federal bureaucrats all pointing fingers.

Not to get off the subject, but why is Obama telling a private company when they should give their shareholders a dividend? He did it with BP and now RIG (TransOcean). The spin doctors in the "oval" would have you believe he got his wish from BP - but in fact the notice from London was a week ago that the dividend would be suspended as the company's value was half of two months ago. Now he wants RIG to do the same. It's not his business to tell business - esp a foreign business what and who they can pay.

And you'd rather see them pay out a $10B dividend, then declare insolvency and stick us with the bill for the clean-up...

Pay the people on the gulf coast first, with guarantied money, and more to come! Invest in a company? It does well, you do well. It doesn't, you don't. Economics and risk, my friend...

[Topfish]

To my knowledge Admiral Thad Allen is charge and has over-site of other Agencies and BP (and other Oil Companies that are assisting). There are dozens of ships coming over from Europe to assist and will be arriving shortly. Today on Capitol Hill there are 50 plus Committee meetings that have to do with the Gulf Crises. I believe this is a record for that many House and Senate Committees meetings on the same subject. We just cannot screw with Mother Nature, especially when it is obvious that there is no current technology or planning to stop a leak for a crises of this nature. We have to have regulations and Agencies that are capable to make sure this type of thing never happens again. It looks like the only hope now is to wait for the 2 relief wells to be finished and pray they work in stopping the leak.