Rachel Maddow, Queen of Boom!
Defender of Good Booming who doth Slayeth The Bad Boom and Reclaimest The Golden Boom Anchor!
Boom Goddess!
Most of you DKos Boomers have been following Rachel Maddow's discussions of the complete lack of Oil Industry investment in leak and spill cleanup research. This, while their exploration and research budgets supported drilling to ever more dangerous depths. She has also been the only MSM journalist to expose the way current technologies have been implemented... wrong. Rachel Maddow said, "That is bad boom right there!" and "Why is that boom so bad?". She did this while the rest of our News Media used useless boom installations as backdrop, never seeming to notice that a single thing was amiss.
Jump the berm with me and I'll discuss good boom, bad boom, and as an added feature, Proper Boom Tending and how devastatingly attractive it is!
First off, lets talk about something really stupid that a lot of otherwise smart people think and say.
Booming is Useless -- Any Wind Or Waves At All And It Doesn't Work
Containment booming was used, initially, to contain fuel leaking from ships. It was later adapted to leaking oil tankers. Containment booming is simple -- contain the oil or fuel, at sea, in an area where it can be immediately skimmed or vacuumed up. Key word: containment. Hold the oil IN. Other key word: immedately. Boom cannot contain oil for very long at all. No boom can. Ever.
With very few exceptions, most of the booming we've seen on television and on the internet since the BP Gulf of Mexico Disaster began has been containment booming. It has been what I call PR booming and it is wrong. They're using Containment Booming, meant to hold oil IN for a short period of time. But they're using it to hold oil OUT from the shore for long periods of time. This doesn't work. They're also using Absorbent Boom as containment boom. Most people call it Sorbent Boom, but I don't because it makes me think of oil-flavored sherbet. Absorbent Boom is meant to be a last line of defense in use with other booming, and for general worksite cleanup. So in these cases they're using the wrong stuff AND they're using it wrong! Rachel showed the results and those results speak for themselves. So what we've been seeing is bad boom. Listen.
Booming doesn't work because all I've seen is bad boom.
Government doesn't work because all I've seen is the George W. Bush administration.
Booming DOES work, and it can work very well. It takes a lot of boom and a lot of rope and a lot of anchorage and it is very manpower intensive. But it works. It works and I'm tired of people dissing it and using it as a stage prop.
Diversion Booming and Fastwater Booming
These are relatively new developments. A company has taken Diversion Booming and perfected it as Fastwater Booming, usually in rivers, streams and tidal passes (email me for the name of the company). I've seen them boom in 7 knots and not miss a drop. They're the best boomers on this planet. Recently, there has been an effort to perfect Fastwater Booming as Shoreline Diversion Booming. Why Diversion Booming? Because, remember, boom cannot contain oil for very long at all.
Fact: In shoreline booming, oil is trying to go ashore. If you let it stop for very long at all, it will go over or under your boom. Oil, after all, is slippery. Diversion Booming doesn't let the oil stop. With Diversion Booming, we aren't trying to stop the oil for even a second. We're only trying to gently aim it to where we want it to go. Time for a very busy image.
(Note: All booming configurations shown are hypothetical, not meant for all situations, and there are other boomers who could do much better than I did.)
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You don't have to read the following description to understand what's going on. If you want, just look at the pictures. You'll get it.
I'll start at the bottom of that picture and work to the top in my description. In fact, off the bottom of that picture, out as many as 50 yards deeper in the water, are large, very long, permanent, cement and metal anchor slabs. Above these slabs ride permanent tie-off buoys. Prior to boom installation, chain, cable or light pipe is strung between the buoys. Moving up the picture, we find the Blocking Line -- a string of 55-gallon drums, filled about 40% with water and cabled to the anchor slabs. These are a new innovation. They can cut serious chop and slow down the oil to where it can be sucessfully boomed. Truthfully, the one time a buddy and I tried these, we only had two. But they worked beautifully. Could you boom in a hurricane? Of course not. But with further innovation these can make booming in some wind and waves very possible. Someone needs to work on this sort of thing and the Oil Industry should fund it. It. Is. Cheap.
Moving up the picture, we come to the Wet Tie-Off Line. This is simply heavy rope with floats and tie-rings. It is also tied to the floating tie-offs above the anchor slabs. To this line, we tie the water-side of our boom configuration. Lots and lots of rope is excluded in this picture. So much rope that if I had included it, the picture would look like hell. There's rope tied at multiple angles from shore anchorage to multiple points on the boom. There's rope tied from the Wet Tie-Off Line to multiple points on the boom. More. The more rope you use, the more adjustable your boom configuration is. As you tend, you'll add even more rope. Proper booming takes miles of rope. And learn your knots! I never did, but you should if you want to tend boom. I've got some kind of mental block when it comes to knots. I can tie my shoes but I'm an embarrassment tending boom.
Next we come to the floating sumps. These are sold commercially, but we made our own out of heavy plywood and 2-by-4s and canvas, and adjusted their floating level by adding water or with cinder blocks tied to the sides. Tenders will spend more time screwing with these than any other task. Another good opportunity for research, development, innovation.
Next, on the shore and up the narrows we have standard diversion boom leading into shore Catch Basins. Standard stuff. After that, the last line of defense.... Sherbet Boom!
Here's another configuration that appears a little simpler.
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This is more Old School. I won't explain it because it's pretty obvious how it works. Here's advantages and weaknesses of both:
Top Picture -- Complex Chevrons -- Floating Sumps
Good:
- Shorter boom sections are easier to tend.
- If there's much tide where you boom, use floating sumps, for the obvious reason.
- Covers more of the shoreline and requires less area.
- Keeps the oil completely away from the shoreline.
Bad:
- Looks too complex. IS too complex for small installations.
- Little more difficult to set up (not as much as you would think, though).
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Bottom Picture -- Straight Angled Boom -- Shore Catch Basins
Good:
- Looks much less busy.
- Little easier to set up (not as much as you would think, though).
- Catch basins can just be holes dug in the bank.
Bad:
- Longer boom sections are more difficult to tend.
- If there's much tide, you're continually digging Catch Basins and moving boom.
- Requires more area.
- Takes your oil to the shore. Contained, yes. But on the shore.
Obvious Criticisms
WTF! That's way way too much boom and rope and... permanent anchors? Are you serious? There's not enough boom in the world to cover 1/20th of the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico with anything NEAR that complex and redundant! Why would anyone do that? Why, Fishgrease? WHY?
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Take either picture above and shrink it into that little square. I mean, in your mind do that.
Okay. So we can all calm down now. 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.
We don't wait until we need it and THEN give inexperienced boomers training in HazMat but no training in booming. We don't lay miles of bad boom just for show. We don't lay Absorbent Boom, wrong, as the only line of defense. We don't make decisions on where to boom and how to boom in each isolated little insta-command hamlet. We don't do it like it's being done right now.
We don't do it wrong.
We do it right.
And magically, like most things done right, it will work. Boom will work.
Stylish Boom Tending
First. Before anything else, that hard hat they gave you? Throw on the bank. Is there anything out here that can possibly hit you in the head? No. There's not. You're not building a skyscraper. You're booming. Don't throw it too far, because if you're stretching boom or a very few other tasks, you'll want to put it back on. Otherwise, screw hard hats. Got your insect repellent? You need that. Tenders work opposite 12-hour shifts (there's ALWAYS someone tending!). I am personally not afraid of oil and I don't mind having some on me until the end of my shift when I can wash off -- but that's me. If you want to wear the suffocating full-body coveralls they gave you, the rubber gloves, the goggles, the goofy rubber boots, that's up to you. Unless its cold out, I'm in cutoff jeans and cheap cloth sneakers and I'm shirtless. Biker's head-scarf. Sunglasses. Tan. I make this shit look good. Take off your wristwatch, your necklace, rings, all that. You're going to be working with rope and anything that can get caught in the rope WILL hurt you. That's why I wear as little clothing as possible. I would rather have a rope burn than have a loop grab my sleeve and take me under and drown me. Same with the floatation device. I can swim and unless the water is very cold or very nasty, I don't wear one.
Women should probably wear a shirt. Women boom better than men, but then they do just about everything better than men.
Most of the time, if there's oil, you're going to be fussing with the sumps. When oil acumulates around the mouth of the sump, you lift the tarp and spill that oil into the sump. When the sump is getting full, you hand (or electric) pump it into a pillow tank or a towable storage tank (big elongated-football-shaped inflatable orange thing). The rest of the time you're discussing boom adjustments with your mates and you're in the kayak or the john-boat and you're adjusting rope. For lunch there's hotdogs with mustard and weathered crude oil. You're going to enjoy this more than anything you're ever done in your life. When the oil quits coming ashore and you tear everything down and you saved that marsh or that nesting ground, you will be more satisfied with life than any King or Queen or President... has ever wished they could be.
In Short
Dispersants. Dispersants are bad. Never mind the toxicity, which might be awful, what dispersants do is bad. After this disaster is proved to have been made much worse by dispersants, hopefully, they'll be made illegal. Amongst the other horrible things dispersants do, they decrease the effectiveness of booming and skimming. Still, both booming and skimming are very much worth doing.
Skimming. Large scale offshore skimming is the best thing there is. The Oil Industry must be forced to fund intensive research into offshore skimming technology. We need to be able to skim in higher waves. We need to be able to skim faster. We need to be able to take a deeper slice of the surface of the water. Skimming can and must get a lot better and we can and must have many more skimmers. Skimming is better than booming but it will never replace booming.
Okay. Peace. God Bless Rachel Maddow and her team. They not only represent real journalism in the United States of America, they presently represent the only real journalism in the United States of America. They're Solid Boomers All.
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Remember The BP Catastrophe Mothership -- To Keep It Holy
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