RED WATERS - RED TAPE

Oil skimmers try to clean up oil, released from the Deepwater Horizon leak in the Gulf of Mexico, before it reaches wetlands Ted Jackson - The Times Picayune

From NOLA:

Just weeks after the oil spill crisis began to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, the French foreign minister volunteered a fleet of oil skimming boats from a French company, Ecoceane. A month later, in early June, Ecoceane Chief Executive Eric Vial met with BP and Coast Guard officials to present the idea.

But after that meeting, weeks went by with little contact as oil continued gushing into the Gulf. A frustrated Vial was only able to get around the bureaucracy last week when his company sold nine of the oil collection boats to a private contractor in Florida, who could then put the boats to work.

Oil giant Shell was in negotiations to let BP use the Nanuq, a 300-foot oil recovery boat sitting idle in Seward, Alaska. But in recent weeks, BP declined to bring it to the Gulf.

So. What's going on? Bureaucratic tangles? Delaying tactics? Ill will?

As oil oozes inland, tainting marshes and fouling beaches, local response officials from Florida to Grand Isle for weeks have been begging for the oil-fighting tool that everyone wants but no one can get enough of: skimmers. They're the primary means for attacking oil head-on and collecting it before it hits land, yet local government agencies complain that the number of specialized skimming vessels out on the water is woefully lacking.

"We want all the skimming vessels in the world deployed," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser. "This is an oil spill bigger than anything we've ever seen. It's a national disaster. We're at war. If you were at war and in charge, would you deploy everything you had to win the war?"

Well, we all know that the acronym SNAFU originated during World War II, so even in that war....

On the Senate floor last week, Sen. George LeMieux, R-Fla., pointed to a Coast Guard map detailing more than 850 skimmers available in the southeastern United States -- and more than 1,600 available in the continental United States.

"We are literally talking about more than a thousand skimmers that are available, but we only have 400 - if this number is correct -- at work," LeMieux said. "It is hard to believe that the response is this anemic; it is hard to believe that there is this lack of urgency or sense of purpose in getting this done."

US law requires that a minimum number of skimming vessels must remain in place wherever there is drilling in the water.

As for the use of foreign vessels, the Jones Act, a maritime law passed in 1920, regulates the use of vessels from other countries in US waters.

The law prevents foreign crews and foreign ships from transporting goods between U.S. ports; in the Deepwater Horizon case, the "port" would be where the oil is collected offshore. Allen has said that many of the foreign-flagged boats are working the spill more than three miles offshore, meaning they would not be carrying oil to a separate port on shore.

"While we have not seen any need to waive the Jones Act as part of this historic response, we continue to prepare for all possible scenarios," Allen said. "Should any waivers be needed, we are prepared to process them as quickly as possible to allow vital spill response activities being undertaken by foreign-flagged vessels to continue without delay."

The statement by Thad Allen that "we continue to prepare for all possible scenarios" took my breath away. While we probably have not yet reached the worst-case scenario, the present scenario is pretty damned awful.

The enterprising Ecoceane Chief Executive, Eric Vial, who took matters into his own hands and sold nine of his boats to a Florida company, making them American boats which could be deployed quickly without the bureaucratic red tape, looks like a genius.

As of last week, no Jones Act waivers had been granted. According to the joint information center for the response, six vessels involved in oil containment have applied for Jones Act waivers that are still pending.

I've heard comments to the effect that Billy Nunguesser, the president of Plaquemines Parish, is a nut, but when you watch the oil flowing into the wetlands of your parish, and you know that all possible resources are not being deployed to stop further intrusion, your desperate pleas for help begin to sound crazy to those who are not on the scene. What I read and see on TV is enough to send me close to the edge, and I'm not directly affected.

I've concluded that our trip to Grand Isle last week was pretty much a waste of time, since we were permitted to see only the cosmeticized areas of the island.