VACUUM THE OIL!

Yobey Benjamin at SFGate writes an excellent post on what the next steps should be now that the BP's attempt at a top kill has failed to stop the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Since the flow of oil may continue until August, when the relief well operation begins, (if all goes well!) shouldn't increased efforts be directed to mitigation and containment of the oil?

What about the toxic dispersants? Are they of any use, but to hide the amount of oil in the Gulf?

STOP THE DISPERSANTS

Corexit is illegal in the United Kingdom. As I wrote in an earlier post, if there is a similar problem in the UK's North Sea, BP would not be allowed to use Corexit.

The dispersant Corexit and even the "less toxic" alternative Sea Brat are both highly toxic to marine life. Yes the ocean will look better on the surface but it does not solve the problem.

There is no good reason to use dispersants because all it does is hide the oil from the surface. Are our seas and marine life not as important as the UK's North Sea and their marine life?

WHAT COAGULANTS?

The real solution seem to be "coagulants" so that congealed oil could be mechanically collected from the water surface. In the Saudi Aramco disaster, Nick Pozzi reported they successfully used flour (yes, flour for baking) and straw (yes, the one you feed to livestock) to absorb oil. The congealed oil was then mechanically collected and properly disposed of.

Sucking congealed oil floating on top of the water is easier than shoveling oil out of beach sand. In the marsh, corral reefs or Everglades it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to extract oil.
....

VACUUM AND SUCK THE OIL OUT OF THE GULF NOW!!!

In 1993, a massive 800 million gallon oil spill happened in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Aramco successfully cleaned up that spill. The lead engineer that cleaned that spill was an American engineer who worked for Aramco. His name is Nick Pozzi and is based currently based in Houston. Apparently Pozzi offered his solution to BP and Coast Guard and they promptly dismissed his solution.

Was it too expensive?

It's a lot simpler to understand than the top kill. It simply requires oil tankers equipped with giant vacuums (think a massive wet/dry shop vac) to suck the oil and water into oil tankers. Using a centrifuge, the tankers have the capability to separate the oil and water. The water is filtered and sent back to the ocean. The oil is recovered and processed as usual.

The method has been validated by John Hofmeister, former CEO of Shell Oil. So why are we not trying it? Nobody seems to know.

How about it, White House? The author's suggestions make a lot more sense to me than any I hear from BP. BP tried the top hat, the top kill, spoke of using the junk shot, and will next attempt to cap the well with a containment valve, which is not guaranteed to work. What are the chances that it won't? If past attempts are any indication....

Read Benjamin's entire post. Lots of good stuff there.

STORY OF THE DAY - BIRTHDAYS

When people asked how old she was,
she would say 1009365, more or less,
because she was so glad to be alive that
she counted every day a birthday.

She had some disagreement from her
knees about the actual figures though.


This one is mine, folks, written for me.

From StoryPeople

BP TOP KILL FAILED TO SHUT OFF GUSHING OIL WELL

From The Huffington Post:

BP PLC Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the company determined the "top kill" had failed after it spent three days pumping heavy drilling mud into the crippled well 5,000 feet underwater. More than 1.2 million gallons of mud was used, but most of it escaped out of the damaged riser.

But BP has another plan.

Suttles said BP is already preparing for the next attempt to stop the leak that began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in April, killing 11 people.

The company plans to use robot submarines to cut off the damaged riser from which the oil is leaking, and then try to cap it with a containment valve. The effort is expected to take between four and seven days.

"We're confident the job will work but obviously we can't guarantee success," Suttles said of the new plan, declining to handicap the likelihood it will work.

He said that cutting off the damaged riser isn't expected to cause the flow rate of leaking oil to increase significantly.

Confidence, but no guarantee of success. If BP guaranteed that their next plan would work, would you believe them? What if the next plan doesn't work? Why do I doubt that the next plan will work? If the powers at BP are confident that the next plan will work, why didn't they try to cap the well with a containment valve, before they tried the top kill?

The relief well won't be operational until August.

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY'S PENTECOST LETTER

Mark Harris at Preludium posted the entire text of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' Pentecost letter.

What to make of the Pentecost letter? The missive is not Good News for one member of the Episcopal Church, namely moi.

The ABC recently hosted an annual seminar The Building Bridges Seminar, at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The seminar "is a unique annual series which brings together a range of internationally recognized Christian and Muslim scholars for intensive study."

The Archbishop seems to put forth a good deal more effort to build bridges with Christians of other denominations and with Muslims than he does with the Episcopal Church in the US, a member church of the Anglican Communion of which he is primus inter pares. Did he speak one word to or even lay eyes on an Episcopalian while he was in the US?

Back to the letter.

When the Church is living by the Spirit, what the world will see is a community of people who joyfully and gratefully hear the prayer of Jesus being offered in each other’s words and lives, and are able to recognise the one Christ working through human diversity.

The Archbishop wants diversity, but not too much diversity, at least with respect to to Holy Orders and our GLTB brothers and sisters having access to all orders of ministry, should they be in faithful, partnered relationships and out of the closet.

And if the Church is a community where we serve each other in the name of Christ, it is a community where we can and should call each other to repentance in the name of Christ and his Spirit – not to make the other feel inferior (because we all need to be called to repentance) but to remind them of the glory of Christ’s gift and the promise that we lose sight of when we fail in our common life as a Church.

I'll say it plainly. I call the ABC to repentance for straining the bonds of affection by what I can only call his contemptuous attitude towards the Episcopal Church. Any of you who have read the entire letter, feel free to call me to account for my use of the word "contemptuous". I emphasize that I don't mean to make the archbishop feel inferior.

In several places, not only in North America, Anglicans have not hesitated to involve the law courts in settling disputes, often at great expense and at the cost of the Church’s good name.

The English tell me that the property laws are clearer for Church of England property than for the property of the Episcopal Church in the US, but I believe the laws are pretty clear here, despite the fact that certain people choose to test them. However, what if a breakaway group from the Church of England occupied a church and would not leave? Would the authorities in the Church of England simply turn the property over to the group if negotiations failed to get them to leave, or would they call the police to evict the group? I suppose the expense would be all on the part of the police, but nevertheless, there's the good name of the church to consider.

It is significant that there are still very many in The Episcopal Church, bishops, clergy and faithful, who want to be aligned with the Communion’s general commitments and directions, such as those who identify as ‘Communion Partners’, who disagree strongly with recent decisions, yet want to remain in visible fellowship within TEC so far as they can.

It is significant that ABC gives the Communion Partner bishops a nice pat on the back - the very bishops whom I see standing with one foot in and one foot out of TEC, the very bishops who would not surprise me if they decided to bolt from TEC.

A time of transition, by definition, does not allow quick solutions to such questions, and it is a time when, ideally, we need more than ever to stay in conversation. As I have said many times before, whatever happens to our structures, we still need to preserve both working relationships and places for exchange and discussion. New vehicles for conversations across these boundaries are being developed with much energy.

So. We must remain in conversation, despite our differences.

And when a province through its formal decision-making bodies or its House of Bishops as a body declines to accept requests or advice from the consultative organs of the Communion, it is very hard (as noted in my letter to the Communion last year after the General Convention of TEC) to see how members of that province can be placed in positions where they are required to represent the Communion as a whole.

Does the Archbishop of Canterbury see himself as representing the Communion as a whole? He has no basis for making such a claim. His views on certain matters do not represent my views. The thought that one province or one person can represent or misrepresent the Communion as a whole is absurd.

I am therefore proposing that, while these tensions remain unresolved, members of such provinces – provinces that have formally, through their Synod or House of Bishops, adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the Instruments of Communion and recently reaffirmed by the Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) – should not be participants in the ecumenical dialogues in which the Communion is formally engaged. I am further proposing that members of such provinces serving on IASCUFO should for the time being have the status only of consultants rather than full members. This is simply to confirm what the Communion as a whole has come to regard as the acceptable limits of diversity in its practice

Wait! The ABC said previously that we should stay in conversation, despite our disagreements. But then he says not this ecumenical conversation, because we don't represent the mind of the Communion. Which he does?

At this point, I'm ready to bang my head against the keyboard. I didn't finish parsing all the parts of the letter that I'd have wished to, because I became tired and stopped.

For more brilliant and learned commentary see Mark Harris, Fr. Jake, Andrew Gerns at The Lead, and last, but not least, Caminante.

GOOD NEWS FOR STEVEN AND TIWONGE!

From the BBC:

A gay couple jailed in Malawi after getting engaged have been pardoned by President Bingu wa Mutharika.

Mr Mutharika, speaking as UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited his country, said he had ordered their immediate release.

Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were given 14-year jail terms earlier this month after being convicted of gross indecency and unnatural acts.

The case has sparked international condemnation and a debate about homosexuality in the country.

Mr Ban hailed the president's decision as "courageous".

"This outdated penal code should be reformed wherever it may exist," he said.

The BBC's Karen Allen, in Lilongwe, says Mr Ban is trying to put pressure on parliamentarians to reform anti-homosexuality laws that date back to colonial times.

Thanks be to God! And it's about time to reform the laws that date back to colonial times.

Thanks to Ann for the link.

BP - STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES

From McClatchy:

Federal regulators complained in a scathing internal memo about "significant deficiencies" in BP's handling of the safety of oil spill workers and asked the Coast Guard to help pressure the company to address a litany of concerns.

The memo, written by a Labor Department official earlier this week and obtained by McClatchy, reveals the Obama administration's growing concerns about potential health and safety problems posed by the oil spill and its inability to force BP to respond to them.
....

David Michaels, the assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health who wrote the memo, raised the concerns on Tuesday, the day before seven oil spill workers on boats off the coast of Louisiana were hospitalized after they experienced nausea, dizziness and headaches.

Late Friday, the disaster response team sent four more workers to the hospital by helicopter, including two with chest pains.
....

Graham MacEwen, a spokesman for BP, maintained that his company is being responsive to any problems as they develop.

"We consider safety a number one priority," he said. "We will continue to try to improve our safety record."

Yes, and I have this bridge....

From the AP:

At nearly every step since the Deepwater Horizon exploded more than a month ago, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history, rig operator BP PLC has downplayed the severity of the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

On almost every issue — the amount of gushing oil, the environmental impact, even how to stop the leak — BP's statements have proven wrong. The erosion of the company's credibility may prove as difficult to stop as the oil spewing from the sea floor.

"They keep making one mistake after another. That gives the impression that they're hiding things," said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who has been critical of BP's reluctance to publicly release videos of the underwater gusher. "These guys either do not have any sense of accountability to the public or they are Neanderthals when it comes to public relations."

Nothing new here really. As I've already said, the president, the federal and state agencies, and all the rest of us should verify every statement by anyone associated with BP before we believe a word of it.

"THE OCEANS CAN'T TAKE ANY MORE"

Philippe Cousteau, the grandson of French explorer and ecologist Jacques-Yves Cousteau, to Bill Maher:

The Florida Keys, third longest barrier reef in the world, is a dead zone. Ninety percent of the big fish, the tuna, the sharks, and other things, are already gone in the oceans. There's a dead zone in the Gulf Of Mexico every summer the size of New Jersey, where there's not enough oxygen for things to live. So it's not a question of 'Can the oceans take any more?' The oceans can't take any more. They couldn't take any more fifty years ago. The question is, when are we going to stop?

From the The Huffington Post:

THE CHORDETTES - "LOLLIPOP"

Because I feel silly, sad, addled, tired, a jumbled mixture of emotions, I take you back to 1958 to the Chordettes singing a good jitterbug song. A lively jitterbug session would shake all that stuff right outta my head.

And there's Andy Williams doing the "pop".

STORY OF THE DAY - FUNNY WORLD

He told me about Jesus & Arizona & the
best way to make beer & I said you're a
funny kind of preacher & he said it's a
funny kind of world & I still remember
his eyes clear as a desert morning.


From StoryPeople.

READ AND WEEP

From Yahoo News:

Perhaps you saw news footage of President Obama in Grand Isle, La., on Friday and thought things didn't look all that bad. Well, there may have been a reason for that: The town was evidently swarmed by an army of temp workers to spruce it up for the president and the national news crews following him.

Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, whose district encompasses Grand Isle, told Yahoo! News that BP bused in "hundreds" of temporary workers to clean up local beaches. And as soon as the president was en route back to Washington, the workers were clearing out of Grand Isle too, Roberts said.

"The level of cleanup and cooperation we've gotten from BP in the past is in no way consistent to the effort shown on the island today," Roberts said by telephone. "As soon as the president left, they were immediately put back on the buses and sent home."

So much for BP putting forth its best efforts in the clean-up.

H/T to The Huffington Post.