The damage done and continuing to be done in the Gulf defies description. A disciplined and organized approach is required to look at all types of the effort that needs to be applied.
I just saw the msnbc report showing that one Coast Guard Lieutenant with twenty skimmers would be in charge of a parish. I certainly do not mean to denigrate or demean our Coast Guard. But we should do the math and take a hard look at what a reasonable really is. How many people are even in the Coast Guard? Do they number 55000 or so? A better plan should be thrown together this week, and rolled out the week after.
Mathematically, it is entirely inappropriate to hold the Coast Guard accountable for entirely hauling off all this shit. Who are we trying to fool? At some point we need to dry our eyes to focus on the immediate task at hand, and the sooner, the better.
The central role of the proposed Civil Remediation Authority should be to authorize and report to Congress on the progress of the civil remediation effort. Its scope should be limited to removing and disposing of toxic materials taken from the environment.
It should have function as a thin layer interface between the government and civilian contractors. It should be funded by BP immediately, with 10 billion dollars to start. A portion of that should be payable in fuel. Take that 10 billion dollar dividend away from BP and hand it over!
It should have a certain structure that facilitates quick and immediate implementation. A small number of Washington executive branch officials should deputize regional authorities (the Parish presidents come to mind) in order to coordinate the recruitment and monitor the performance vectors of contracting companies.
I can think of four broad divisions of labor for the various companies invited to the party:
1. Gathering and collection of toxic materials
2. Ground transportation and disposal of materials
3. Support services of the gathering effort
4. Administration services for reporting and managing facilities and resources
Think of a ton of toxic brought out of the Gulf as a product that needs to be refined, marketed, distributed and consumed. Divide up the parts of the job. Appoint people, assign tasks.
Who are these people?
1. Gathering and collection of toxic materials
Anybody with any kind of boat should spread nearly any kind of dried cellulose plant material such as straw, hay, pulverized corn cobs. Fishing vessels should drag booms. Tug boats should drag barges holding cranes to lift the material onto other barges. Beaches should be cleaned without using plastic pails and shovels, and bare hands. Professional cleanup crews have been most notable by their absence. Used, disposable paper uniforms, along with many other kinds of paper, should be part of the cellulose biomass used to soak up the oil. There really should be a more robust effort in getting that stuff to soak this stuff up down there, and not just the sporadic volunteer efforts. This should really be 24/7.
2. Ground transportation and disposal of materials
Dump trucks and other hauling resource should empty the barges, and take the messes parking lots covered with plastic sheeting covered with beads of more dried vegetation. The whole thing should be covered with enough plastic sheeting to keep it safe from the weather, and to channel the nasty, noxious gases these steaming piles will give off into gas fired ovens. These giant piles of oil shit should be dried out, and disposed of as promptly as possible before it ends up in the ground water. Perhaps coal fire or biomass plants would be most appropriate in this emergency.
3. Support services of the gathering effort
What are the people with efforts #1 & #2 going to eat, sleep, use the bathroom, gas up the boat or car, call home? The Coast Guard could easily be inundated by just keeping all the people who should be out there safe and helping them out when their boats break down. Tying the Coast Guard up by scrubbing beaches is a misallocation (IMHO). BP seems to have just given the folks in their measly, ineffectual camps food poisoning. Medical services are being prepositioned now. Many people want to have a place just to show up and help.
4. Administration services for reporting and managing facilities and resources
Who documents the expenditure of funds? Who photographs the loads of crap? Who weighs the hay beforehand, accounts for who got it, and weighs the oil crap that comes back so that the tally man can tally those bananas? Who directs where that stuff goes, what happens to it, how it is ultimately disposed? Who sets up places in when no one wants it in their back yards? Could superfund sites be logical choices? Local governmental authorities seem like logical choices. All paperwork could be digitized for the web, and people like us could read it.
I truly wonder if there has been a siege mentality growing in the Obama administration, when what should be seized is the BP dividend and their 50 million advertising budget. F**k BP anyways! I just saw Tony Hayward on the teevee, and he would really be best served to STFU.
Comment, rec, write your own diary, or write your Congress critter. Something needs to happen fast. I know a lot of these things are being done anyways. What's missing is the mainline into the BP cash. The first 10 billion should be considered a down payment.
And this is about organizing the environmental remediation with a more reasonable force strength, and not throwing everything on top of the Coast Guard. You can count on the guardians to give their lives trying to save you from drowning in your leaking boat, but pushing around the oil companies has never been their forte. And BP does not have competence in environmental remediation, which is a heart and soul kind of task (as is any task).
What this is not about are the many other good purposes for the BP money along the lines of victim compensation.