Fishgrease diagram on Daily Kos
FishGrease, the world's foremost pseudonym in oil booming, posts another Daily Kos primer on how to protect the Gulf of Mexico shoreline from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Fishgrease wrote this one specifically for Rachel Maddow, who has been banging away on how lousy BP's booming has been. And yes, Fishgrease knows the picture up there is complicated, writing:
No, we can't boom the entire Northern Gulf of Mexico. We don't need to. We don't need to boom 1/30th of the Northern Gulf of Mexico. But there are places we need to boom and boom right. We don't boom beach. We don't boom mud bank. There's lots and lots of places we don't boom. We take all the boom and rope and anchorage from all that PR boom and we use it where we really need it. And we use it properly, so it will work. We boom where birds commonly nest. We boom inlets to inland marshes. The example above is a no-brainer. Most decisions will not be nearly that obvious. But we make those decisions. We don't not make those decisions. We make those decisions years before we need to and we maintain a command structure and we train community teams and we do yearly drills and and we obtain and maintain the materials we need and if the Oil Industry wants to drill or produce offshore, then they pay for it all. Now. Before they do anything else, and as part of their permitting, they get this done.
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Booming doesn't work ~ oil will go right under the booms due to diespersal agents sending plumes down ~ check out this video PLEASE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx8kMXufu3w
NOT booming doesn't work either. I don't believe anyone -- Fishgrease most of all -- has suggested that booming is a panacea. And yes, the unprecedented use of dispersants further complicates an already difficult situation. Unless you're deliberately withholding your better ideas, I'd wager that you don't have any to provide. That's okay, because the point here is that not enough attention has been paid to clean-up technology in general -- so you're not alone in that regard.
ref Fishgrease: For Rachel
It sounds like a legitimate idea. What I'm tired of is reading what we will do, what we can do, what must be done, but I don't see, we're doing it, we're doing it because we can and we're doing it because we must, NOW. And, it would be bad to hear we've been doing this since this thing blew it cork.
The fact that Fishgrease has an outlet anywhere in the MSM is the best news I've heard so far in this unfolding disaster. There are so few people in any kind of position of authority or influence looking at this situation analytically and critically. Thanks, Rachel!
We're way ahead of you Rachel ... This has been on the web since May 25.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrOYoE-Hrp4
actually since may 17, Laura ~ but good to see others on the same page. Rachel is doing the best job of all MSM getting the message out.
Excellent! That video is priceless and right.
I think they're just reading Fishgrease's Booming School posting from May 10th. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/11/865387/-Fishgrease:-DKos-Booming-School
My day just keeps getting better - another hero finds their way into the fold of supporting real journalism. That Daily Kos blog was great, absolutely great! and..
Fishgrease, you rock!
And I agree with them too, Rachel and her crew rock also!
I propose everyone who manages to read, and tries real hard to get to 100% comprehension, Fishgrease's Daily Kos blog on all things Boom should get an honorary "I passed Booming 101" sticker...
Brown pelicans, snowy egrets, sea turtles, great blue herons, Louisiana herons, crayfish, ducks, roseate spoonbills, blue crabs, coots, oysters, shrimp, schools and schools of Gulf fish, hermit crabs, the entire coastal marshland of Louisiana and its critters, and I are jubilant over your boom diagram.
I've been following Fishgrease's diary for about 5 days. What I have learned is that not enough is being done at this very minute to help minimize the impact of this oil catastrophe. I have posted his work every chance I get all the while wondering, how do we get this to someone who can get it out to the world because this could make a big difference. Thanks team Rachel, keep this up and you will be the only trusted news source broadcasting on television in America.
Boom shmooms...according to so many reports the technologies available that are far more effective than booms have not been used in the volume that is needed.
There is a Georgia company that makes absorbent mats that can be deployed in wetlands and not enough of the skimming or suction equipment has been deployed and the dispersant being used is one of the worst ideas EVER dispersing the oil into a gazillion toxic fragments suffocating everything and impossible to clean up.
The other burning issue is why didn't BP stop using them when when directed to do so. And are they still being used.
Why isn't any skimming or oil suctioning equipment being deployed where all the thick goo has accumulated in the now calm waters by the wetlands. Unless it can't be deployed on shallow water craft? That needs to happen NOW rather than just let the drift keep shoving all the glop further inland.
I think Fishgrease's piece is brilliant. He's explained that booming as it is done now will not work but that there has to be several layers of booming and that you can't just contain, you have to put the stuff in a storage tank of some sort. Booming is a part of the answer in addition to skimming, suctioning, etc. I don't think Fishgrease was trying to say that boom is the entire answer just a valid piece of the whole if done correctly.
Rachel, can you please revisit this information and do some type of brief commentary on it? Why has no one even attempted this option? It cannot be the cost can it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VfypUzx1tI&feature=player_embedded
Thank you!
It's really frustrating seeing bioremediation pushed and pushed and PUSHED in the comment threads here day after day after DAY by so many people who have leapt on microbes as The Solution without understanding the scale of the problem and the logistical science that makes bioremediation not the panacea it seems to be.
Did you watch the show where Dr. Joye was interviewed and talked about O2 levels? Microbes need O2 (just like us) to be able to live and do their job eating oil. Oxygen is often the limiting reagent in aquatic chemistry, b/c oxygen isn't very soluble in water.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limiting_reagent
Without plentiful oxygen, microbes will just use what O2 is available and then die. Even WITH plentiful oxygen, microbes will use it until it's depleted...and then die. And water without oxygen is a dead zone--not just microbes die in it--everything does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_%28ecology%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_%28environmental%29
Would people PLEASE stop haranguing Rachel and crew to report on this "miracle" cleanup method, b/c miracle it isn't. Some relatively simple googling will bring up lots of info on the complexities of bioremediation (DO2 levels are not the only problem, just one of the most obvious). If there's anything we know about Rachel, it's that she cares about accuracy. I know it's in the human condition to hope, and videos like the one you linked inspire hope that something that's been overlooked (or deliberately ignored) will be The Answer and if only Rachel gets the word out then the Gulf is that much closer to being "saved".
But look: this is too big and complicated for any one remediation method to "save" the Gulf. It's past that point now. In the years of cleanup to come, I GUARANTEE you that bioremediation will be one of many methods successfully employed in the job of restoring the Gulf. As for why it's not being done now, the known drawbacks and limitations of bioremediation do not suggest it will be very effective on the scale on which it is being suggested, and may even make things worse by making vast swathes of the Gulf into a hypoxic zone.
Yes, it is A method, but it is not THE method. And it is so tiring to see otherwise well-informed commenters just push push pushing it without doing some basic research.
And btw it is not your comment in particular I am objecting to. It's gotten so that I read, "Rachel, why aren't you covering this", see a Youtube link, and then skip to the next comment b/c I already know it's a bioremediation vid.
Fishgrease has shown the efforts by BP & the gov't to be more for show than anything----time for the world; and them; to realize that----AND GET THE DAMN WELL PLUGGED!!
It may be low-tech, but if done right, it works. But we need to use the suction and skimming equipment with it to help collect what we can't with booming.
Collecting the oil is what we want to do, so we need it on the surface. Thus, no use of dispersants should be allowed. We need boats, the booming and collecting equipment and lots of trained people working on this 24 hours a day until the flow is stopped and the oil is cleaned up. It needs to be done to keep the oil away from the wetlands and sea life nesting grounds.
Boom the beaches only for oil collection near or on shore. Beaches will recover quickly once the flow stops and they are relatively easy to clean up in hot weather.
The wetlands will need years or possibly decades to recover with a lot of help. Barrier islands need to be built, and sea grasses and plants need to be planted to keep what is built in place. Since we lose 25 sq. miles of wetlands per year, we need to replace that area artificially to protect the inland from hurricane storm surge. Oil, gas and shipping started massively interfering with wetland build-up about 100 years ago, so 25 * 100 = 2500 square miles of wetlands need to be replaced along the Louisiana Gulf Coast immediately where they used to be. Then more barrier islands and marshes need to be built to take over for the lack of natural marsh-building. Once we get the land area back to pre-1900 amounts, we can work on maintaining it.
And why is BP allowed to make any decisions at all about what gets done? The OSC (on-scene coordinator) is supposed to be in charge and directing the clean-up. Where is he or she, and why aren't booms being used properly? It's not like we don't know how to do it.
We can also get the people trained and out there to work on this. Lots of locals and others are chomping at the bit to volunteer to help. Teach them to boom and collect oil correctly then assign them a schedule; 3 8-hour shifts or 2 12-hour shifts per day. Rotate crews in a staggered manner to bring on those who want to spend their vacations helping and give full-timers a break.
This isn't going to be that expensive compared to the loss of wetlands, fishing, and tourism. It can be done with a mix of employees and volunteers, and I'm sure if we asked, we could get more volunteers than we can use at any given time. We could also get enough boats to take people to where they need to be to maintain boom and collect oil.
Nice to see good diaries getting linked. Thanks guys!
Fishgrease has written a number of diaries on this subject and the point he makes in each one is essentially the same. The bottom line is that the clean-up efforts thus far have been managed completely incompetently. Because most of us have no idea what needs to be done, we can't discern proper clean-up efforts from improper clean-up efforts. Fishgrease is a 20+ year veteran in the oil business and just simply knows things we don't, including how to clean up oil. Channel after channel, talking head after talking head is showing images of boom that is stretched out in a single line parallel to the shore and NONE of them are making comment that it's being done wrong. Why? Simply because they don't know proper "booming" from improper "booming" when they see it. That's why Fishgrease's diaries are so important. He's basically the kid in the crowd yelling to the rest of us, "Hey! The Emperor has no clothes on!"
If you saw firemen trying to put out a five alarm fire with a single garden hose, you'd think the firemen were incompetent. Well, that's pretty much how Fishgrease feels about BP and the U.S. Coast Guard. The only problem is that he's one of a small handful of people on this planet that can even recognize competent oil clean-up when he sees it. That's why we're lucky to have him on our side. Without Fishgrease, we might have never known. So, kudos to Rachael for using her show to bring more attention to this issue.
If you follow the link above to Daily Kos, then click on the link in Fishgrease's name, you can read the other excellent diaries he has written on this subject. The first one was pretty profane, but then he was pretty angry, bless his heart.
He is not the only diarist following the Gulf disaster, including a daily roundup that is usually linked somewhere on the front page list of diaries. Fishgrease and others seems to be a lot more knowledgeable than anyone you will see in front of a camera, media or otherwise, present company excepted of course.
Rachel's coverage has been dogged, insightful, appropriately emotional, and accurate, What a surprise. Not. More please.
I liked your article, so I clicked on the thumbs up box. I'm very new to the vine, (it's only been 3 days). There have been no comments yet on my first two articles, but they moved me from the greenhouse to the real thing, (I think). they suggest I read and comment on some articles to get some exposure. I've never been a social net worker, but I'm retired now and have some time on my hands. The Gulf oil fiasco has pissed me off so much I decided to find a way to vent. So here I am.
My first attempt to comment said I needed a Face Book plug in. I know I'm naive, but do I need to join Face Book to comment and participate on Newsvine? Hope not, because I'm typing here. I'll soon see what happens when I post a comment again below.
Grandron, you should just be able to comment by joining newsvine and being logged in here. I have facebook scripts on this page disabled in my browser, and I can comment just fine.
Awesome, awesome, awesome! Thank you Rachel, for paying attention to Fishgrease--and other blogs with this kind of solid, reportable information.
Now, if we could just get your bosses to understand that Politico isn't a real worthy friend of progressives...
:-)
Politico is populated by hacks who dutifully write down whatever someone tells them and think they are reporting. Watching Matthews interview them today was so bad I had to turn it off.
Fishgrease is the best. I'm glad Rachel is using his stuff as a source - he trustworthy at a time when so many are not.
If you're having trouble registering to comment, try putting your screen name in the box that asks for a partial url. No promises, but works for some.
About that Booming video mentioned up at the top...... The Booming video was put up on May 17th and now has been mirrored about 40 times. I put that video up on May 17th, but I'm not sure you guys realize that FishGrease wrote this material too. It was posted in a DKos diary by FishGrease on May 11 and adapted for this video (with approval).
FishGrease and Rachel are both doing the hero thing.
Keep up the good work. Both of you.
We can complain about what we can't do. Let's not screw up the things we can do. I appreciate fishgrease and his work. Thank you Rachel for using your voice.
Rachel's reporting on the disaster in the gulf has been the most straightforward and fact-filled of any in the media.
This is precisely why FishGrease wrote that diary at Daily Kos, fact-filled, hard hitting and true.
Nice to see Maddow Blog return the tip of the hat.
I've been watching Rachel the last few days cover booming, where no one else seems to be. Fishgrease's booming diaries have been around for quite a while and it upsets me that correct booming is still not being done.
A bunch of young people are out of school for the summer, we have record unemployment out there. Why aren't folks being hired (to be paid by BP) to work the booms? Now!
Thanks to both of you.
No, you don't need to be on facebook to post on the Vine. :D Welcome to the party.