BREAKING: Coast Guard Head Was Informed of Maine Oil Boom on 5/21. Yesterday, He Claimed He Didn’t Know
Auburn, Maine, company Packgen has miles of oil spill containment boom on hand and has the capacity to produce upwards of 100,000 additional feet of boom a day. That inventory and that capacity has been available to help the Gulf Coast states for nearly a month. The news of this company was reported here at PJM four days ago, on June 8.
The curious case of the lack of interest in Packgen’s boom gets curiouser and curiouser. Yesterday, ABC News had an interview with Admiral Thad Allen, the national incident commander in charge of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. After a handful of questions about the flow of oil into the Gulf from the wellhead, the topic turned to mitigation of the spill. Here’s the exchange:
Jake Tapper, ABC: I talked to a guy who runs a company in Maine that offers boom, and he has — he says — the ability to make 90,000 feet of boom a day. High quality. BP came there 2 weeks ago, looked at it, they are doing another audit today. He is very frustrated, he says he has a lot of high quality boom to go and it is taking a long time for BP to get its act together. Don’t you need this boom right now?
Allen: Oh we need all the boom wherever we can get it. If you give me the information off camera I’ll be glad to follow up.
There was no need for the admiral to ask for the information from Jake Tapper. It’s contained in a letter that has been on the admiral’s desk since May 21st. The letter was also sent to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco. Copies were sent to Governors Bob Riley, Charles Crist, Haley Barbour, and Bobby Jindal. The letter was signed by two U.S. senators.
It’s not hard to come by. Here’s a copy:
I interviewed Packgen owner John Lapoint at his facility in Auburn on Friday afternoon. BP today, once again, had representatives in the building to inspect his production line and his product, and to verify his assessment of his capacity to deliver more. BP is still not ready to commit to purchasing the oil boom, though.
Packgen’s boom not only passes every independent ASTM assessment, it’s apparently superior to the material currently being used in the Gulf. According to John Lapoint, it’s priced only slightly higher than oil boom that BP apparently normally purchases from places like China. And according to Packgen, boom manufactured in Auburn, Maine, on Monday can be onsite at the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday. Boom from China normally has a lead time in months.
Packgen still has the 13 miles of ASTM certified floating oil containment boom, packed and palletized and ready to ship at a moment’s notice to the Gulf Coast.
The fact that the Obama Administration has seemingly sat idly watching the disaster and not doing anything substantial to mitigate the damage leaves only two conclusions. They are either woefully incompetent or they are deliberately hoping to let as much damage as possible occur. Never let a crisis go to waste, when you are trying to pass Cap and Tax or Nationalize oil production.
I have to agree with your latter hypothisis, rrbs. How many congressional investigations have been held and proposed laws have been written since the start of this thing and yet, this happens. Were they too busy making plans of how it could be exploited rather than addressing the problem. I would love to see if the honorable senators from Maine have DAILY follow-up e-mails (who the heck spends the time to write snail mail letters these days anyway?) after sending their letter. Who wants to bet there’s none?
Agreed- this is a crisis that they plan to exploit. My guess is that it not only allows them to go after oil companies but also allow them to reduce fishing(a big part of their destroy everthing agenda, I mean these are the same people destroying valuable farm land in California by turning off the water supply) without having to appear to be doing so. The oil will simply destroy the Gulf region’s commercial fishing industry.
Crisis? What did Rahm Emmanuel say?
This is why we see the full scale attack on BP – and the halt to any other off shore drilling permits. To the extent they can the Obama admin will use this crisis to minimize or kill off shore drilling as too dangerous to the environment.
The trouble with this approach for them is that this crisis is showing the American public just how good large government is at responding to an ‘out of the ordinary’ crisis. No oil booms made available – foot dragging on sand berms and dispersants and burning of slicks.
A shinning example of a bloated bureaucracy at its worst – paralyzed – inefficient – unable to make quick decisions when you need it most.
Conspiracy maybe.
The corruption of obama and his people has now reached into our military leaders.
The letter is dated and sent from senators. The failure to act upon this information by the president and BP is more evidence of the huge mistake those who voted for obama made.
As rome burns.
gordo, every general or admiral must be approved by the Senate. It’s always been political until there’s a bad enough war to winnow them out.
Or did you think that CLINTON appointed and COPPERHEAD Senate confirmed General Shinseki was opposing the Iraq war for military reasons?
Cap and trade … it’s all about making oil spill disasters worse to pass cap and trade.
So why hasn’t Obama waived the Jones Act? If he had early on the tanker-skimmers would have been surrounding the well head and skimming oil. The 1990 OPA says containment as quick as possible is the best way to control the damage. It also assigns President Obama as the lead party … Which explains why he continues to try and act like BP is responsible.
Boy are people going to be really mad when they figure out the crisis was allowed to get to mega-size for the lies of cap and trade. Ideology trumps all with Obama.
“What we have here is a failure to communicate”, and coastal Louisiana will pay.Liberalism is utopian it is built on dreams and not reality.
Thank you for the colossal scoop !
And of course when people like me write that this administration, made of subversives, has only ONE goal: weakening America……… all the serious and moderate pundits laugh.
ribs:
they are deliberately hoping to let as much damage as possible occur. Never let a crisis go to waste, when you are trying to pass Cap and Tax or Nationalize oil production.
I sure believe this all along. He sits and does nothing but use offensive language to appear angry, when all along he hopes it is so bad that we will throw up our hands and agree to be taxed out of our lives. I also think that is why he uses such horrible language about BP, hoping they will tank. So who picks up the cost? The tax payers of course. Not his cabinet because most of them don’t believe in paying any.
I think they communicate very well but fail to act and do what they know needs to be done.
Obama is allowing this to happen for a reason.
We all knew about the booms, how could they not have known> lies on top of lies..
The administration is allowing this disaster to go on…
I have not seen such government incompetence since Carter’s disastrous Iran hostage rescue attempt.
The most criminal, amoral administration ever.
Yesterday on Twitter, ABC’s Jake Tapper reported that the Coast Guard said the boom didn’t meet quality standards on an initial check:
http://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/15964913366
“Coast Guard finally got back to me: “The boom manufactured by Packgen did not pass an initial quality control test.”"
I’d like to know when that inspection was carried out, and how it squares with the claim by Packgen that their booms meet ASTM standards.
“Stand idle” is code for “black.” You are a racist bigot who will say anything to damage our president.
Um, what?
I suspect Alice is being sarcastic. At least I hope she doesn’t actually believe what she said.
“Alice Wigglebotton” is code for “paranoid schizophrenic” notice her insistence that language has hidden meanings beyond denotation and connotation that all add up to a racist plot against “The One”. Take your meds…..
We do not need to lift a finger or say a word, he does it all on his own…
I think he excelled in finger pointing in college.
You must have your own code…and don’t try to pawn it off on the rest of America.
Obama is a failure,
… “failure is a code word for failure”
.
Huh? Surely you’re not serious.
Please explain to me how “Stand Idle” is code for black. I’m seriously lost on this one. The beginning of this spill was no more Obama’s fault than Katrina was Bush’s. http://stoppinginflyover.blogspot.com/2010/06/oil-spill-no-more-obamas-fault-than.html
However, the completely botched response since is certainly the administration’s responsibility. I will not go so far as to scream conspiracy, since one should never attribute to evil intent what can be explained by simple incompetence, and certainly this administration has shown little competence on anything. But to immediately play the race card Alice, simply shows you have no argument to make.
Patrick
People, it’s a joke, and a pretty funny one at that. Think about it.
I do love good deadpan humor. Given arguments I’ve seen on these boards though, she’s either hilarious, or drank the coolaid. I vote hilarious.
Ms. Wigglebottom,
That was way out of left field, and completely uncalled for. Are you paranoid about the failures of the Obama administration being exposed, or are you just another useful idiot.
This oil leak is a serious disaster and, so far, the employees of BP and a few other volunteers are the only ones who have tried to fix the problem. Our government is completely unprepared, despite the fact that they spent millions on preparedness for just such a disaster in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez spill. In fact, it was mostly the Exxon employees who cleaned up after that mess.
Now back to you and your stupid attempt to point the finger elsewhere. I absolutely hate what the President is doing to my country, but it has never had anything to do with the fact that he is part negro. Exactly how does that fact have any connection to solving the problem in the Gulf of Mexico?
The Principal Liar sleazits Pesons Galore!
Obama’s fascist scorched earth “boots on their neck” rhetoric assure that BP’s only sensible business option is to fight the US government when it should be fighting the oil spill. Additionally, Obama has asserted that he is “in control” — doesn’t this legally mitigate BPs impetus to act or spend without explicit federal direction? Obama and his filthy socialist sewage at the top of this administration also have a tremendous conflict of interest in cleaning up the spill too aggressively. It serves to advance their anti-capitalist agenda in every way…
Could there be a more perfect storm for this bag-of-crap socialist fascist Obama? Through the devastation of this spill, Obama has a perfect scapegoat in BP, and a perfect pretext to drive through more of his anti-American redistribution swindles. Many have been warning about Reichstag fires and coups – but why would Obama need any of this? The ideological coup d’état was accomplished with his election by the treasonous Left and by race-motivated minorities. Reality, in the form of the financial meltdown, Iranian nukes, Islamic Jihad, BP oil spill, ALL are Reichstag fires in the hands of this vile, vile monster. America is in deep trouble. Our enemies celebrate, our former allies should hide. American is being dismantled before our eyes.
Oh how well you spew hate. and try to make it sound as though you are the good guy. Good guys do not use ad hominiums to get their issue points across. It does not work that way. first you have to be a positive person, which you are not.
I am sorry for your mental anguish.
Re:11, In an emergency it seems like boom that does not meet ASTM standards would be better than no boom at all, but to use it would require a decision from the administration.
The standard test for State scullduggery is the refusal to act;
Obama has failed the test, and the parties injured by his inaction
are too numerous, and too powerful, to be ignored when they cry ‘Foul!’.
And that’s the problem with the misleading stories out there on this topic. It’s actually NOT an issue of using less than ideal boom versus doing nothing. They have boom in warehouses right now. And are you unaware of the manpower issues of installing boom? Are you unaware of how deleterious it would be to install something that didn’t last/wasn’t easy to use/complicated movement or redeployment and then have to replace it later with something that didn’t have those problems? See, people who know what they’re doing DO know these things, and they determined that it was better to NOT use this product. This is NOT an example of the Obama Admin or BP being incompetent. This is an example of the rightwing being anxious to blame Obama for anything they can and assuming the worst about him, and believing anything a businessperson says about their product.
Hi there DellDolly. This is your recent acquaintance from Media Matters on the subject of Gerald Walpin. Nice to be able to respond to your note, after finding out that Media Matters has closed the comment feature. Here goes:
_______________
Keep serving up those talking point lobs so I can bat them back. Obviously YOUR mind is made up, and I grant you the technical legal points have been covered off by those opposing Walpin’s positions; cannot fight city hall easily. But there’s lots more to know and consider before we get to the bottom of this. So far, tracks have been covered as much as possible, except for the firing having violated Federal Law procedurally until it was given cosmetic surgery. As I learned more, it became apparent that this is a guy that one should not mess with, and wondered why the administration was willing to bring on the predictable counter punch. They may have figured a lot was at stake or else they they underestimated (misunderestimated?) the importance to him of his honor, reputation, and the influence and effectiveness of his chosen role. Clearly it is not about power, money, or status.
Came across the photo when checking out “who IS this Walpin, so undesirable as to be abruptly fired by phone and didn’t see it coming? Some whacko or doofus friend of W?” With the photo was a detailed bio referencing his humble beginnings and subsequent achievements over decades, and I started to think, “Huh, what’s up?” A little later on I found a letter…..
On June 23, 2009, a bipartisan group of 145 current and former public officials, attorneys, and legal scholars signed a letter that was sent to the White House, and to others in key positions relative to the matter, which said the criticisms of Mr. Walpin were inconsistent with their knowledge of the man. Signers of the letter included Michael Mukasey (former Attorney General), Bernard Nussbaum (President Clinton’s former counsel), former U.S. Attorneys Otto Obermaier, John Martin, Zachary Carter, and Andrew Maloney, and six former and current presidents of the Federal Bar Council. Here:
“We have known Gerald Walpin as leading member of the NY Bar for many years. Most of us have seen him and heard him speak, including at this month’s meeting of the Second Circuit Judicial Conference and last week’s meeting of the Board of The Federal Bar.
“We have never seen Mr. Walpin to be “confused, disoriented [or] unable to answer questions”. While none of us was present at the meeting referred to in Mr. Eisen’s letter, we can only report that such an allegation is totally inconsistent with our personal knowledge of Mr. Walpin, who has always, through the present day, exhibited a quick mind and a command of the facts (whether we agree with him or not) and eloquence — essentially the opposite of someone who is “confused, disoriented, unable to answer questions”.
“We note that the signers of this letter include both Republicans and Democrats, voters for President Obama and Senator McCain, and many who do not agree with Mr. Walpin’s personal political views. But all of us are unanimous in affirming Mr. Walpin’s integrity and competence.
“The following have authorized the use of their names as signatories of this letter.”
Your reply stresses “judge” versus “non-judge”, as if that qualifies one versus the other to have a legitimate opinion. Scalia. Thomas. Alito. Etc. They are as pure and impartial as the day is long, right? Surely there is NO chance a judge would calibrate his/her decision to conform with preferences of the White House instead of the arguments proffered by a 78-year-old formerly retired guy with no useful connections and no power except his word. That kind of thing used to happen in the Bush era, but certainly is no more. Note: Bridge for sale; easy terms.
Amusing to be exposed as actually BEING Walpin. Love it, but frankly I never heard of the guy before his head was severed. There are some similarities: I am a great-grandfather, retired (but not interested in coming out of retirement to do public service), and believe the impartiality and career protection of IGs is critically important. Both of us are apparently workaholics, though I am trying to reform. But I am NOT old enough to be a Magna Cum Laude 1955 graduate of Yale Law, nor would I be selected as Editor of the Yale Law Review as Walpin was. From what I know of the man I admire him, but I am not his equal much less his alter ego or hissownself.
I hope that Admiral Allen isn’t going to be too cramped down there when Oilsama tosses him under the bus.
Meanwhile, isn’t Oilsama going to swim down there and plug that damned hole? If not, doesn’t Oilsama have a plan to suck it all up using a big straw?
Would that be the Oilbama I have heard of?
Of course these booms didn’t meet government standards. The standard is:
to be approved booms must be recommended by Democrats, and definitely not by Republican Senators.
Can’t Jake Tapper and you understand this?
They were not approved because they did not have a month long meeting with the unions in Washington to decide if the right people made it and the right people will put them out and the right people….
While there is so much crap gong on in the Gulf region, Obama fiddles.
For once…I totally agree with James Carville!!! Allen has a lot to answer for also.
Obama is just making a fool out of Americans. He’s in over his head.
Yes there is lot that could be done..just ask the people around the Gulf coast
Next we get to see Obama priss around the beaches while the fish die, the communities go bankrupt, the oil flows.. But BP answers to him..don’t forget that.
My heart is breaking. My beautiful country is being led to ruin by a man who isn’t competent to run a dog kennel.
This man you speak of is not even qualified to scoop up the droppings in a kennel
He’s not qualified to BE a dropping.
Ah! Well, now we know something about Thad Allen that we didn’t know before. He’s either incompetent or a liar; or perhaps an incompetent liar. Could have suspected it, but now it’s been confirmed.
The Ft. Hood massacre bore bloody witness to the depths and lengths of corruption and failure in our military upper ranks; this just adds a bit more to that diseased portrayal. Thanks for nuthin’, Thad.
Can we call GEN Honore back out of retirement?
Adm. Allen is doing everything he can in this disaster as well as the US Coast Guard. I take it personally wh people critiicize them for not doing enough. I have been in the coast guard for 10 years now and been in the gulf since the rig exploded. We have been there since day 1 and cleaning it up 24/7 since oil was spotted. Adm. Allen have done a great job as both my commandant and as incident commander. Bp hasn’t done their job. So blame them. Everyone personally should stop criticizing adm. Allen, coast guard and the govt since it is not helping adm allen or anyone out in cleaning the oil up. We are doing everything we could with the resources we have and we will there to the oil is all cleaned up. I like to thank adm allen and my fellow coasties for doing everything they could in this disaster. SEMPER PARATUS!
Its not the Obama administration. Its not Obama.
I am no Obama supporter but you people so anxious to bash Obama are missing the point: Its government in general: lazy, unaccountable, syncophants holding powerful positions and clogging all initiative and acomplishment. Making idle and unhelpful threats of criminal prosecution and unleashing Holder on a problem that needs a solution not a blustering moron. Like the last of the western roman emperors trying to obtain by edict what they had ruined by taxes and crimial laws
Remember the “government” is what screwed up at Pearl Harbor (“let’s play golf”), at the Twin Towers in 1992 (the police and fire dept radios didn’t allow each to talk to each other), and again on 9-11 (the radios still didn’t synch), and in the series of events since then that show that a lot of luck, as opposed to government competence, has blessed us.
The admiral is probably a good man, but has been overwhelmed by press, demands for “action,” and a lazy unaccountable series of agencies and departments that are more interested in union overtime than solving a problem.
It would have been essentially the same under Bush. As a matter of act it was. You’e kidding yourself if you think otherwise.
The best we can hope for is that the problem will be solved as excessive resouces are now directed at a problem that could have been solved a bit more easily before. And yes, Obama will make it worse as he threatens BP, shuts off oil drilling (but I give him credit for pushing the deep water drilling in the past few months), and continues to spend and tax.
But seriously: oil wells sometimes leak–a lot; hurricanes sometimes happen; and the far left crowd that insists that Obama act like a roman emperor–meddling in every thing–should not be supported by you all, acting as if its somehow Obama’s fault that some admiral didn’t read a letetr about oil containmment booms. That’s just the way government is.
There are a lot of reasons to vote against Obama: the oil spill isn’t one of them.
I think the oil spill is showing us where Obama stands and that he is incompetent, period.
George, you are correct up to a point, but that point was passed long ago. There is a ton of things the government could have been and should have been doing long ago, and I have worked with the government on emergency response type situations 3 or 4 times over the last 15 years, on things that had never been done before. In this case, much of it has been done before.
I don’t blame Obama for the blowout or for the lack of success so far in capping the well. The federal government does not have the expertise in drilling, capping, or anything to do with the well. It may come out at the end that a number of wells are not being regulated properly, or inspected properly, and like the coal mines, this is a bipartisan failure going back at least the 30 years I have worked in these industries.
But what I do blame him for is the response to the containment and cleanup, and I cannot believe I have not seen more on this. This is where a large federal government has a huge advantage over a company to be able to manage this. The government has the Navy, the Coast Guard, the Merchant Marine, the Military Airlift Command, the Army Corps of Engineers and more that could bring in supplies from all over the world, and could contract for all the fishing boats in the gulf. We could have contained this spill at the source. We could have protected the wetlands and coastlines. Sure, make BP pay in the end, but they should not be in the lead for this.
When Katrina happened, you may not realize, but over 60% of the country’s oil comes in through the port of New Orleans, and without pumping capabilities all of the refineries would have been down, and we would have had massive fuel shortages. The Bush admin and the appropriate governments pulled out all the stops, suspended some of the regulations necessary so that we could fly massive equipment in from all over the world, set up temporary power generation, pumps and controls to get the oil flowing again. We had things up and running in a week and did not see a blip and averted a crisis.
The government created a plan to respond to spills with fire booms in 1994, but neglected to actually have some on hand. But no problem. There was one in storage and many more that could be flown in by the MAC. But we did not pull the trigger. It is estimated that 95% of the spill could have been contained and burned.
Next line of defense are oil pigs/ booms that can set up containment. Again, this is ideally suited for a large government with all of the assets previously mentioned. Nothing. Now, the fact that all of this boom is readily available but nobody can pull the pin to get this done is incredible. As I mentioned, working with the government previously in emergencies, that was not an issue. We told them what was needed and they made the logistics happen, suspended some regulations, not an issue. This crap about studying all of this in a crisis situation in nauseating.
Next line of defense is building the temporary sand berms as proposed by Bobby Jindal and others. Louisiana requested permission to build these on May 5, and today 6/1, Obama finally ordered BP to build them. Granted, if I were Jindall, I would not have waited for permission. In a crisis it is I would rather seek forgiveness than permission, and he should have built them. Again, the resources above could have had these built in weeks, tops. But we dithered and studied, worrying about the environmental impact. THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT????!!! And now it turns out that the Dutch, who are the world experts on anything hyrdology related, had offered their expertise, boats, booms, siphoning equipment, etc – 3 days in and we still have not taken them up on it. That was my first indication that Thad Allen was not as competent as I first thought. The reason the Dutch were not taken up on it is that there are rules about having foreign flagged ships in our waters. He could have suspended them, but did not. Instead, they are having some of these other countries remove the equipment from their ships, sending it to the US to be mounted on our ships – costing at least a month in delays. Thad Allen sat at the news conference the other day and said no one had asked him to suspend the regulations. Well, a crisis leader would know these things and would not act like a bureaucrat waiting for things to come through official channels.
So what did the Obama administration do? They sent in a “SWAT” team of lawyers on day one to see how they could sue BP. Steven Chu, our idiot Energy Secretary convened a panel of nuclear scientists, because of course, Phd’s are smarter than everyone else and can surely figure out how to cap a well 5000 feet under water. Oh, and James Cameron, from Hollywood. What a complete bunch of morons. Now they want us to believe they have been on the case since day 1 and are calling the shots. Really? Really. That does not make me feel any better.
Good points all. Its a bit amazing is it not, that we have to reply on the president to assure, pressure, cajole and threaten a massive group of agencies, admirals, directors, chiefs, etc. to just do a fairly obvious thing like getting containment booms in place without waiting for “instructions from Washington?”
A trauma nurse from Los Angeles, a New York or Philly cab driver could have made the right decision in 20 minutes.
Can you imagine Donald Trump saying “no one asked me?”
I mean as you point out, only in government do you get a decent man like the admiral, excusing lack of action because “no one asked me to” suspend the regulations. Like Admiral Kimmel (no one told him the war was on so it was OK to golf and line ships up nicely until he was told otherwise), individual initiative, imagination and accountability has been bred out of them all.
Geroge,
Admiral Kimmel’s predecessor at Pearl Harbor, Admiral J. O. Richardson, showed plenty of initiative. He insisted that President Roosevelt not station the Pacific Fleet there because it was “disdvantageously positioned” to prepare for and fight a war from Pearl Harbor. He was fired by FDR for his effort.
Admiral Kimmel’s boss, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Stark, strongly advised President Roosevelt not to submit an ultimatum to Japan. Roosevelt ignored his advice. Pearl Harbor was attacked as a consequence and Stark was fired by Roosevelt.
For a discussion of ADMIRAL KIMMEL AND THE QUESTION OF THE PACIFIC FLEET’S STATE OF READINESS please see my website at: http://www.pearlharbor911attacks.com.
Regards,
Tom Kimmel
Much of what you say is correct. As too containing the spill at the well that would have been a problem. The well is putting oil into the water 5000 ft below the surface. What we needed to track is where the plume was surfacing and throw resources to contain it at those points. We waited to long and it has reached shore all along the gulf coast.
If it is the bureaucrats in the government who are at fault, then it is also the Democrats who are at fault. Even when the Republicans are in power the Democrats still run the bureaucracies, you follow.
We might as well elected the Marx Brothers to run this country. These Obama guys are a joke when it comes to actually planning and executing a project. They’re just like the Keystone Cops, stumbling around, bumping into each other, swinging horizontal ladders in a crowd. Idiots, all of them. Posers, spinners, and showmen; but actually doing anything useful? Forget it. They’ve incompetent.
Well, damn! I thought the Coast Guard was still honest and competent.
The Coast Guard appears to have been running interference for BP by ordering reporters out of areas affected by the oil flow.
I think it’s time someone stepped forward in defense of Admiral Allen.
MY second guess is that either he really didn’t personally know of the company that had these booms available or if he had saw the memo he had farmed out the responsibility to check it out to someone in his command without remembering the name or location of the manufacturer.
But the most likly explanation is that the memo never made it to the Coast Guard but was held up by Obama’s administration, who don’t understand that time is something that is not wasted in a crisis.
The matter of the boom not meeting “quality control” requirements may be true in that who ever inspected the boom from BP or the government actually saw a problem. The Owner stated that he had made changes to meet their objections (in an interview I saw), while he didn’t explain what those were.
Admiral Allen is a no nosense leader who did a fantastic job on the Gulf Coast after he inherited leadership of the Katrina and Rita disasters. But if he is not getting cooperation from Obama’s government, he will not be able to accomplish what he did in the earlier Gulf Crisis.
Read this:
http://securitydebrief.adfero.com/2010/05/25/unprecedented-service-thad-allens-almost-retirement/
I’m going with the theory of it once again being bungled by Obama’s people.
Or prehaps they just wanted to buy Chinese boom so that they could save a few bucks or earn a future favor from China.
That is the Chicago way you know.
Papa Ray
The boom manufactured by Packgen did not pass an initial quality control test. Boom is subjected to great wear and tear when placed in the water and must be frequently tended. In order to retain its effectiveness boom must be of high quality. Once Packgen’s boom passes inspection, the company can be considered as a source for supplying boom to the largest oil spill response operation in U.S. history. In the meantime, suitable boom is being identified and obtained quickly and there is currently 459,000 feet of boom stored in the region in addition to the 2.24 million feet deployed.
This from the gov’t team in charge of the spill! They don’t appear to be desperate for boom. That’s the spin from Jindal and the Prez of Packgen; that there’s a great need for Packgen’s boom, but it doesn’t appear to be true.
Both Interior Secretary Salazar and Admiral Allen are behaving exactly like Mayor Nagel of New Orleans. They do not know how to use resources for crisis management. These two continue to disregard the immediately available booms, as did Nagel permit scores of school buses to be flooded where parked and not utilized for evacuations (Google the pix). These are examples of wimpy leadership. And then they direct blame away from their errors.
A troubling pattern emerges of Democrats not able to constructively help unless there is something in it for themselves. Party affiliations are revealing deeply held character traits, even character flaws. The Democrats themselves too often lack a “can do” attitude which is so necessary. Their leadership spontaneously generates a blame and dependency attitude which is destructive of self-borne cooperation. What is in it for me?, and who else can pay my expense?
Lt General Honore’s statement to the National Press interviews during Katrina: “don’t get stuck on stupid”, is again so apt and applicable to the crisis management of the spill.
Dammit. It is time to quit waiting on permission from incompetents. It is time for us to act, like the free people we claim to be. Buy boom, ship it to folks who can deploy it. Dredge, and build berms. Use Costner’s machines. Revolt against the incompetence. It is our country. We must do what needs to be done, because if we don’t, it is not going to get done.
“you people so anxious to bash Obama are missing the point: Its government in general:”
No, it does land on Obama’s head, because there are governments and then there are governments. “Government” per se isn’t the problem; the fantasy of the all-encompassing Mussolinian state is the problem. What we are seeing is the spectacular and very public death of the Socialist dream. The superstate can’t even deal with something simple (I said simple, not easy) like an oil leak. What is the realistic chance that it will prove competent to handle more complex problems, like North Korea, Iran, the national banking system, or your health care? How about some number close to zero? And now in the Gulf even the hammerhead press can see it. Obama’s out of his depth, the federal government is out of its depth, and the US is becoming mired in serious doo-doo.
good read
“the alien in the white house”
I think Obama is an incompetent fool that is destroying our economy and our standing in the world.
That said, I don’t believe the spill represents a huge amount incompetence by him. Nor do I think we have the facts yet to know if BP (or others involved in the drilling) were incompetent or shortsighted.
Until there is a full technical review, we won’t know if BP’s well design, management of drilling operations, or BP/Transocean’s operation/testing of the BOP was not up to standards, we won’t know if Federal inspection of the rig, or Federal review of well plans were deficient, we won’t know if the BOP was incorrectly built or installed. Ultimately, notwithstanding the media pitch, we may find that everything was done correctly, but a true accident occurred (you know, one of those events where despite everyone’s reasonable good faith efforts, mankind’s capabilities and knowledge failed).
This has been a highly technical problem from the beginning – something that only the trained engineers with decades of experience working on wells could competently address. None of a President who didn’t even know the word “spud” until a few weeks ago, a Coast Guard commandant who has never worked on a drilling rig, a movie director who thinks taking pictures in deeper water somehow qualifies him to work in the most complex underwater oil well blowout ever and every two bit reporter who has been learning well terminology from Wikipedia have skills that are of any use in this situation. The best thing they can do, including BP senior management, is stay out of the way of those who have the appropriate knowledge.
The only assistance Obama and other administrators can provide, is to make sure those who can solve the problem are provided all necessary resources.
On the clean up side, Obama and BP management can be of more use in terms of making sure resources are marshaled, but I have not heard any reports that there are problems with that. I have not seen reports on where booms are in short supply – if so, then Obama and BP should be talking to boom suppliers (and whether this guy in Maine should be one of those suppliers is not clear – again, I’ll trust the experts).
Moreover, some of those pointing fingers at the administration could have shown more guts. I like Governor Jindal, but if he really believed sand berms were needed, he could have had his National Guard on the beaches immediately and told the EPA to call him once they got their heads out of their a**.
Of course, I’m sure for decades to come, our idiot congressmen will being drawing the wrong lessons from this accident and costing us all dearly.
Nearly everyone that posts on this site could have done a better job that the fools running the show now. After day one when an initial assessment showed that this could be a potential disaster a quick contact to BP to find out what plans they had for dealing with the spill would have been in order. The idiots in charge were only looking for a way to place blame. The next step would have been to find out what else could be done to control this disaster. There was help offered from all over the world and it was ignored as was help from our own country. A prudent man would have initiated several of these plans simultaneously so that as they were either successes or failures to varying degrees we would have had multiple responses to solve the problem. The inability for this guy to do anything other than bribes, basketball, golf, and party is a big reason so much is wrong now. Even if the person in charge has no specific talent he should at least know how to find it, one place it is not is Harvard. To say he could not have done a better job and could not be expected to would be the same as not expecting an adult to call an ambulance for someone clutching his chest and falling down on the ground.
The obama apologists are going to be busy trying to duck and cover some more.
Allen: Oh we need all the boom wherever we can get it. If you give me the information off camera I’ll be glad to follow up.
Where does he claim he doesn’t know?
Sounds to me like he skillfully deflected Tapper’s question.
The United States Coast Guard is the only island of competence in the Department of Homeland Security. ADM Allen may be a lyin’ POS, but it will take more than this to convince me he is.
Is America finally waking up to the propaganda? Liberals/Progressive started with Woodrow Wilson. Well they have been in force and worming their way for nearly a hundred years. It is time we get rid of them and repeal the 17th admendment and call for an admendment convention? It can be done and has to be done unless you like this kind of life style of pushing stuff down your throat until you just give up. I’m not. I believe all the rest of us will not also. Fight America Fight. Drill baby Drill, maybe the fruit cake Grayson will come get me, I could only wish. Lest just face it like Ron Whitev said “you can’t fix stupid” all you can do is get rid of the syndrome.
Correction:
Adm. Allen is not the Commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Robert J. Papp, Jr. is, and has been since May 25th, 2010, when he replaced Adm. Allen upon Adm. Allen’s retirement.
Thad Allen is the National Incident Commander in charge of the Government’s response to the Gulf disaster; but, it is becoming more and more appearant that the actual power resides in Carol Browner’s office in the White House, and that everything must be run by her before any decision is made.
Lying incompetent bastards in the White House, DHS and all associated Obama bureaucrats. Buy the damn material and get it into the Gulf of Mexico, you incompetent jerks!
This Administration knows exactly what they are doing. They are trying to destroy the USofA. STATES MUST DECLARE THEIR 10TH AMENDMENT RIGHTS AND THEN NEGOTIATE ON THEIR OWN TO CLEAN UP THE OIL BLOWOUT MESS. It’s the only
way to smack the Obama/Pelosi/Reid/etc Administration in the arse.
The BP Drilling lead was trying to recover the very expensive clay used to set the well and replace it with seawater – a very risky, unprofessional act on his part which was questioned by others. Unfortunately, the pressure behind the crude/gas was much more than the sea waterreplacing the clay (which is why they use heavy (expensive) clay) to it couldn’t counter the pressure coming from below and blew.
Papa Ray….”But the most likly explanation is that the memo never made it to the Coast Guard but was held up by Obama’s administration, who don’t understand that time is something that is not wasted in a crisis.”
One copy of the letter was addressed directly to the admiral at his Second Street (USCG) address. If he didn’t get it, it was most likely held up in the Coast Guard bureaucracy, not by Obama staffers.
BUT, notice that a copy was also sent to Interior Secretary Salazar. A competent executive, on receiving this letter, would have investigated to find out if the ball had been dropped somewhere.
Heckuva job Kenny!!
Either frighteningly incompetent or deliberate sabotage on the part of the Obama administration. Whichever you choose, the results are catastrophic, but Obama IS to blame.
I’d like to know why the daily newspapers in Maine haven’t reported this story.
Time to start a website to drive donations to buy oil boom from this company and send it to the gulf.
Thad Allen is a dismal failure! Retired General Honore should be put in charge of the whole thing with authority to call the shots. He is a man of action who would kick ass and take names.
That’s the problem…Thad Allen does not have the authority…it all has to go through Obama administration..
Deliberate sabotage !!!
What Obama and crew are doing in neglecting to take any positive action is incompetence at best and criminal at worst. From the first, help offered by the Dutch and other foreign countries was turned down because their ships are not union. Think about that. The president has the power to overide any laws in case of an emergency, and Bush did so after Katrina. Obama turned down help from the very beginning because of his loyalty to the unions. That alone should make every American angry! We’re all watching in slow motion the intentional destruction of the eastern coast for political purposes. Obama doesn’t care about the coast, the wildlife dying, or anything other than his Marxist agenda. Neil Cavuto said yesterday that the picture of the oil gushing out of the well thrills this bunch and they want it to go on as long as it takes to pass their Cap and Tax bill. We have a Chicago thug presidency and they act just like the mafia. Read it and weep!
“stand idle” = Black
Let me explain: ANY WORD OR PHRASE that even remotely implies that Odumbo is ineffective is RACIST!!!!! (Whoops! I guess “Odumbo” also qualifies, eh?)Other examples: Oreo cookies, Black holes, tar balls, congressional ethics panel. Just ask if you waqnt more.
My impression of Thad Allen is that he is a decent guy but has been given the whole thing to handle when the job should have been broken up into several manageable parts ( ie. the blow out itself, the LA coast , FL coast, international help for skimming etc). I think Obama has failed to manage and delegate properly.
I see it as more than likely that ‘not announced here’ is the operating principle behind the haughty Government ignoring of all that boom. Also more than likely, the Packgen factory is not staffed by one of Obama’s crony Unions, and his operatives have been looking for some other more crony-run factory from which to obtain booms. That Senatorial letter would be hard to ignore, if the MSM wasn’t part of Obama’s harem. Hmmm, Snow and Collins – aren’t they Republicans? Eeeeeewwwww, they must have voted wrong on some Important Issue – or perhaps any issue.
Admiral Allen may be puppetized by the Obamoids as well – I think he’s not as bad as Al Gore at being programmed to transmit but never receive. But his (feigned?) ignorance of the boom yesterday with Jake Tapper is a crippling admission.
Good on PJ Media for holding them all accountable. It’ll take a mighty push for the MSM to grudgingly take up the story.
All,
Admiral Allen did know about the letter. At the Coast Guard there is a computer system managed by the IT shop and the singular purpose of that system is to manage letters from and to Congress. It has 1 and only 1 purpose to track, manage and respond to all things congressional. It is the most important unclassified system in the USCG HQ.
I can assure all readers that letter is in that system. It has dedicated IT support and dedicated aministrative support in the Admiral’s office. Tje system is not easily identified in various documents, it is identified in procurement documents USCG uses to buy IT services. The Admiral’s office knew. Period.
Regarding the USCG assessing quality. This is the same Coast Guard that could not assess quality on its own ships and radios. USCG directed contractors to make a number of compromises in the design of Deepwater ships. When those poor design decsions showed up as flawed ships, the Coast Guard blamed the contractors. They did not accept responsibility for their bad decisions and they blamed others for Coast Guard failures.
Coast guard sailors and Non-commissioned officers (NCO) live and die to protect our coasts – a core Coast Guard mission. They live the USCG motto “Always prepared.” The Coast Guard officer core operates under a much different ethic – blame shifting and blame avoidance is the Coast Guard officer ethos. I’m sorry to inform all of this. Fundamentally, the organization compromises on holding officers accountable for poor decsions. The NCOs make the Coast Guard a service to be proud of.
The complaint on quality strikes me as the officer ethos at work – OOPs we did not check the letter database and route the letter to Adm Allen. No worries, the company’s booms are of poor quality – No Booms are better than booms that may not meet Coast Guard officer standards. Is this the story we are asked to believe?
I assure all, I know USCG NCO’s. Had they known of this company’s resources, some action would have occurred.
No worries, the company’s booms are of poor quality – No Booms are better than booms that may not meet Coast Guard officer standards. Is this the story we are asked to believe?
You nailed it, NVAP.
Let’s see the inspector’s report, and the company’s response.
Would the letter have made it to his personal DESK or to his OFFICE? (sorry, I can’t seem to do italics) I’m playing a bit of devils advocate here, but if it made it to his office, it could have landed on the desk of a staffer who ignored/misplaced it?
Again, this is all much to do about nothing. But then again, when was the last time any right winger brought something substantial to a serious discussion?
You do know you have no credibility or integrity from your oft dishonesty and no one really takes you or anything you have to say seriously.
To Phranc: My “oft dishonesty,” eh? Really? Well, I do strive to use authoritative sources to back up my postings rather than the fevered imaginings used by most who post here, so I guess by the standards of the right wing nut-o-sphere, that would make me dishonest in their eyes.
By the way, are you digging the response further down by Coast Guard spokesperson, Lt. Erik Halvorson? Not to be too cliche-ish here, but reality bites, doesn’t it?
Given what we now know about the huge amount of oil which has and continues to gush out, the lack of booms or skimmers early on, becomes less and less relevant. Apparently there is so much oil out there now, that it is going to take years, using whatever methods they find to clean it up. If there had been a relatively limited spill, where early containment would have kept it from getting ashore, there would be a case to be made about the relevance of the snoozing and the screw-ups, but these circumstances appear to be more that such a huge amount of oil is out there that none of these smaller possible reactions and adjustments are all that relevant. The disaster is much worse than feared and this political skirmishing will be swept aside by the true war of cleaning it up. I believe that new technology-bearing ships, skimmers, burners, and things not yet in existence will be brought to bear on this massive and ever-expanding great lake of oil.
It falls on BP, big oil in general, and then the Federal government in that order. BP will be terribly, if not mortally damaged by this; big oil (especially its off shore drilling components) will have to come up with a lot more expensive safeguards, insurance policies, and clean-up mechanisms. The Feds will be generally slimed by it all, but it will be tough for any candidate to make a case that they could have stopped this or made a difference. The debate will be on future policy.
This evening the ‘the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde’ at Fox News announced with incredulity that BP was going to sell the oil that has been recovered from clean up efforts. That pegged the meter on my B.S. detector. Is the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico really the disaster that it’s being made out to be? Or are we being played and entertained? Is that pelican we’ve all seen a hundred times just one in a hundred, or is it the only one? This whole oil spill show looks pretty bogus when one considers that on a scale of proportionality it’s tantamount to a teaspoon of oil in an olympic size swimming pool.
Is Lisa Jackson still Adm of the Environmental Protection Agency?
Why are we not hearing from her? Shouldn’t she be making decisions…
She should be on the hot seat.
why anyone thinks this administration has America’s interest at heart is delusional.
they want the crisis, they want an excuse for shutting down the offshore oil.
they are criminals and frauds.
That’s an accurate evaluation of Obama and his politburo. In fact, Obama has been scamming the USA since day one. I don’t know what’s more problematic: Obama’s duplicity or the fact that so many Americans buy into it.
george,
I appreciate your comment, though I differ with your take on Obama and your take on Obama’s view on Government.
Obama has vastly increased the number of Government employees which in his ideology will, ‘..shore up the unemployment numbers and improve small businesses’. Whaaaa?
In other words, he knowingly feeds the pig/Government and tells the populous something altogether different. Or nothing at all.
Here’s a person who has NEVER been off the Government teet his entire ‘career’, nor taken responsibility for any blight, indiscretions or innuendo passed his way. Yet never tires of hearing his own voice reading a 20-something’s text of ‘..getting the economy back on track..’. The lights on but nobody’s home..
Obama APPOINTED Salazar and Allen to their posts. These individuals have proven to be the wrong stuff.
I wouldn’t feel bad for 2 individuals who aren’t doing their job! Again, 2 people who took their position, duties lightly.
Being from Colorado many were ecstatic ol’ Salazar was leaving the mountains. In retrospect, he’s done far more damage than thought possible.
The boom manufactured by Packgen did not pass an initial quality control test. Boom is subjected to great wear and tear when placed in the water and must be frequently tended. In order to retain its effectiveness boom must be of high quality. Once Packgen’s boom passes inspection, the company can be considered as a source for supplying boom to the largest oil spill response operation in U.S. history. In the meantime, suitable boom is being identified and obtained quickly and there is currently 459,000 feet of boom stored in the region in addition to the 2.24 million feet deployed.
LT Erik Halvorson
Chief, Joint Information Center
Deepwater Horizon Response
Unified Area Command
I’m sorry Lt. Halvorson but, why is nearly half a million feet of boom “stored” in the region and not deployed 2 months after the incident? Further, I would think that ANY boom material that could get to the gulf now seems to be the way to go and I mean any, from logs to strung together inner tubes. Who cares about the quality of Packgen’s product at this point, short of it sinking the moment it hits the water? How long do your inspection and testing procedures take? From the sound of it and knowing government testing standards we’re talking months, right? Thanks a lot for setting us straight though.
Because the false meme that there’s a great unmet need for boom in the area is just that – false! There’s some sitting in warehouses, waiting to be deployed until it’s appropriate to deploy it!
So it is best to have an environmental disaster than to use boom that is doesn’t quite meet the quality required. Maybe the Packgen boom would not have retained its effectiveness, but it would have worked until other boom could have been put into place.
You are a fool and a disgrace to this country.
Would you refuse to throw a life preserver to a drowning man until you verified that it was life guard approved?
A supply officer at Pearl Harbor on December 7 refused to issue ammunition until the desperate sailors secured a “requisition slip.” Are you a direct descendant?
Maybe you guys didn’t see this link I’ve already posted twice. There are other boom makers out there and many of those seem to be rather busy.
I went to the ifa link, and looking at what’s there, it could go either way. Three little articles down in the left side (didn’t click those, just read the headings)- AL Gov thanked the pres for the extra boom, LA and FL govs both complaining about the shortage of it. So….your link wasn’t the ‘Hah!’ you seem to want it to be.
Also, great, there are other companies busy making booms. When two govs are crying about shortages in it though, it could indicate that well, there’s a shortage, or that the companies producing are tapped out. The Coast Guard could have easily responded with ‘we have enough boom and haven’t been looking for other sources’- assuming your link proves there’s not an issue. There has been a lot of talk of needing more though, and needing to bring resources online. (on a side note, I’d really like to know what the defect was…Lt. Halvorson? And how is it you have time to read pjm and respond IN THE COMMENTS SECTION instead of, oh, I don’t know, distributing a general press release with details?)
Then again, maybe it’s just been an efficiency in placement issue. (I will also admit there is a lot of arm-chair quaterbacking going on, or at least I think so).
Some other questions, such as not taking up the Dutch on assistance, are interesting though.
Lt. Halvorson:
There is, in the conduct of operations, a method called “operational necessity”. That occurs when an operation is in danger of becoming a complete failure and you throw the book out the window. “Operational necessity” requires that you do whatever it takes to salvage the op.
Of course, instead, you and your guys went by the book. I’m sure that Obama will immediately promote you to admiral and give you a medal for “heoric constraint”.
Do LT’s usually have this kind of authority?
Well, what ever you guys “say” you’re doing down here…it ain’t enough, and it’s obvious. Plus how can you possibly turn anyone away for your version of environmental quality at this point? Look at the dispersant you allowed to be put out!!!!
Here is my take on it
http://truthandcommonsense.com/2010/06/12/the-boom-controversy-how-much-boom-and-how-much-bang/
The Boom controversy. How much boom and how much bang?
Posted June 12th, 2010 by admin
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaking-coast-guard-head-was-informed-of-maine-oil-boom-on-521-yesterday-he-claimed-he-didnt-know/
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/06/18-us-beaches-may-be-ruined-forever-while-miles-of-oil-boom-sits-in-a-maine-warehouse/
I live near the Gulf. As a matter of fact I could probably fire a .22 rimfire and hit part of it. I spent all my life on the waters of the Gulf, swimming, boating and fishing. So I’m not insensitive to the plight faced by all of us. It will take YEARS to unscrew this mess. I’m also not a fan of Obama’s for many, many reasons. But I’m not sure booms are one of them. Let me tell you why before you all go crazy and look for pitchforks.
If booms are needed how many? What kind? Are there any located for lease or sale along the coast already? Where are they, where are they needed? Can they be useful and where? Do we have enough already in service, but just need to get them to the Gulf? Who has them? How much?
These are the questions anyone- The Coast Guard or BP would and SHOULD ask before they go to MAINE!!! and buy new ones. Think for a second. If they are in a warehouse it isn’t like we can teleport them to Louisiana with a flip of a switch. They have to be bought, transported (lining up tractor trailers), loaded, unloaded, distributed and finally put on boats to be placed by hired personnel in the water.
I dare anyone who is jumping all over this issue to plan that out in a week or two or maybe even three. Add to this the fact that nobody could really grasp how long it was going to take to cap the well. Part of that problem is going to lie at the feet of BP and the government. They spent the first couple of weeks lying to each other. Obama should have had the CEO in the White House or met him somewhere early on and laid out the ground rules. That is what a leader does. But Obama is not a leader, period.
None of the articles above answer the questions I asked. They are full of complaint, but not the answers needed to prove the complaints valid. That is where I will stray from the “hate everything Obama does” path. Trust me, a short read through my posts will prove I think he has done tons wrong- intentionally and unintentionally- but this may not be one of them.
Let’s get this whole story put together before we condemn the Coast Guard or BP for THIS act. There is plenty of blame to go around for everybody to grab a huge slice of the pie. From the environmental groups that bitched to the point that oil companies are drilling in a mile of water, to regulations put in place that made land drilling almost impossible, to the politicians who played every angle for one more donation, to companies that may have traded safety for profit. There is plenty of blame and more to come. Right now, let’s cap the damn thing, clean up the mess, and figure out how not to do it again. If a real President was in charge, he would make it so there would be no drilling at 5000 feet and bring it back to 500 feet for safety reasons or maybe get back on land. But this guy, THIS guy, he’s a piece of work.
A poster gave me a great lead for what Obama might really be like in private. Look at the post below.
http://truthandcommonsense.com/2010/06/12/paul-in-houston-gives-us-another-possible-insight-into-obamas-personality-benzini-napaloni/
I desperately need a new piece of equipment for my business. I’m hoping someone will call and tell me where I can get it.
53. Thad Obama
“I desperately need a new piece of equipment for my business. I’m hoping someone will call and tell me where I can get it.”
Sounds like you already work for the government.
Get back on the nearest tit and wait. Pretty soon, one of the feral-gummint-corrupted “contractors” who actually does anything around there will “projectize” your requirements and milk them for their every last Red Cent before passing them off to the obscenely-corrupted-by-both-the-proximity-and-the-process feral-gummint “supplier,” whose feral-gummint-contracts “adviser” will examine the requirement before offering the dumbest and the most expensive “fix’ his gangster-operated company can produce, too damned expensively ($900.00 toilet seats, anyone? Or a Billion Dollar order of RVs abandoned on an Arkansas airfield?) and too damned late!
I dare anyone who is jumping all over this issue to plan that out in a week or two or maybe even three
Good grief. What an ignorant comment. It takes 28 hours 32 minutes to drive the 1762.82 miles from Bangor to new Orleans.
OK, the booms are in Bangor, Maine, right? There’s also an airport there. Obama’s C-in-C. He rings up the Air Force, tells them to send every available transport plane to Bangor, load the booms, and fly them to the Gulf. We’ve got no shortage of airports and military air bases in the Gulf region. I would guess, given an order from Obama and a minimal amount of coordination with the manufacturing company, they could be loading the planes in a matter of hours. The booms are palletized. How many pallets can fit on a C-130, a C-17, a C-5, or even civilian transport planes? Even if it takes a day or two for the air Force to get all the planes into the loop, they could have been getting booms to the gulf within hours. Bangor to Maine is what, 3 hours by plane? All I see is either massive incompetence, or deliberate obstruction.
Lt Halvorson…”In the meantime, suitable boom is being identified and obtained quickly”
Did the government have a system, either paper-based or computerized, that kept track of: (a)existing government inventories of boom, (b)manufacturer/distributor inventories of boom, (c)manufacturers of boom and their production capacities and leadtimes?
It certainly *sounds* like this was not the case.
Do you inhabit some kind of parallel universe?
Are you saying that there really is NOT the equivalent of many, many Exxon Valdez spills already out there, with one more per week being added until it it capped? Have you checked with Alaska folks on what ONE Exxon Valdez spill did up there? Or bothered to compare the number of people inhabiting the coast in the gulf, as opposed to the population of Prince William Sound coastline?
Just or clarification, this comment was supposed to show up as a reply to # 47 Patrick’s meanderings
Just for clarification, this comment was supposed to show up as a reply to # 47 Patrick’s meanderings
I said it to some friends the other day. Martin Gore is the writer, musician and background singer of the band, Depeche Mode whose accomplished far more than Obama has ever claimed.
Martin Gore is mulato as well. Though he didn’t have to employ a ghost writer to shill out a fictitious AUTObiography. Nor coverup/ dismiss discension with ‘hope’ and ‘change’ rhetoric.
Their only similarity: They both had deadbeat Dads. Obama puts his pathetic patriarch on an undeserving pedastal and Martin puts his emotions to paper, then song. The latter gets it. The other is rudderless.
Having worked offshore as a geologist for the past 28 years all I can say is that from the President down a lot of people are talking out there backsides, BP did not own one piece of the equipment involved in this blowout. BP is the ‘operator’ and as such pays the bills, it buys ALL its services and expertise, in this case all from American Companies, I do not know in this instance, but, normally an oil Company drilling such a well would have 2 to 3 representatives on the rig, everybody else is contracted labor. A Co. like BP would find it very hard to tell the President of the USA that he is an idiot !
From the Gemara, (Sanhedrin 98a), Rabbi Chanina says,
” When the waters are heavy with oil, and the fish can no longer live, then these are the days when Moshiach (Messiah ) is imminent “.
http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2010/05/the-prophecy-of-gushing-oil.html
Written almost 2000 years ago, when petroleum was unheard of.
Time is running out.
If the memo was received at Coast Guard Headquarters it would have a received stamp and a copy would be on file there. Adm. Allen caries water for no man. I can prepare a memo any time, I have not heard Gov. Jindal say he was aware of the booms and he was the one yelling loudest. If the booms were inspected and found not to meet the standards does not mean they would not work, they may have been missing a yellow stripe every 10 feet. The government requires such stupid standards and they do not bend unless overridden by a higher authority. It is the bureaucracy and that could have been avoided by a memo from President Hussein Obama to the chief of Procurement. No leadership is also part of the problem, he is not engaged. Government is too large to operate effectively.
And these are the people who now have the power to run our health care. Where did we ever come up with the idea and the expectation that the government can run anything efficiently?
It all started when they weren’t checking out this rig… Holland offered help, declined.. Boom ready, declined, skimmer company in TX, declined, because of some Jones act that they can waive, but won’t(same with Holland).. Saudi Arabia has equipment.
At this point, I’m suspecious.. I also figure that these companies are NOT union, and the gulf region is predomently conservative, this is one way to get them to be reliant on the govt.
Hannity has had several segments on people who have come up with ways to mop it up, Huckabee(I’m not really a fan)did an entire show of entrepreneurs who have come up with ideas….
Not approved. That means they haven’t greased the palms and done the kickbacks. When people mess up, they will make up excuses. These admirals know they have red tape purchasing agents that are on the take. Many gubment purchasing agents are famous for interference and hindrances. Many great sales people hate to sell to the gubment. Gubment buyers are as bad as they come.
Sorry guys but this spill aint nuttin to worry about. You must realize that we have been exporting our oil spills for decades. The tiny nation of Angola produces this much spillage every year. This is not Katrina or anything resembling a true national emergency. Just ignore the news and take a deep breath!
This is a true National Emergency. The first tar balls washed up on the shores of Dauphin Island, AL on Saturday, May 8th. At that time the Island was as protected as possible; with boom around the marsh areas,the port of Mobile Bay, Gulf Shores, and Orange Beach, all of Alabama. However, several days before President Obama decided to visit Louisiana the boom being used in Alabama was taken to Louisiana for the photo opp of the president. Local news reported the information about the boom being taken, however there was no national news stories about this issue. Gov. Riley spoke out about the removal of the boom, however the story was not picked up and the boom was not returned. Our good friends in Canada supplied us with some boom,(Thank You Canada. However, our shores were not completed protected before the thick sludge of crude oil hit the shores of Alabama on Friday, June 11th. Since the oil appeared we have been informed that the president will arrive on Monday and they put BP on notice to come up with a better plan by Sunday night. According to local news they expect the thick sludge will be on sands of Florida tonight or early Monday morning. As far as the dead animals,(birds,turtles,whales,fish,etc.) the numbers are to great to be shown or understood. They have been able to save some birds. However, if they were to stop this leak today our sealife would take years to recover. Is is my opinion that the story is being down played. As far as the Coast Guard is concerned they are not in charge. Their is no boom being stored. The boom would not stop the liquied oil rolling over the boom with every wave. In order to see what is really happening you must listen to and view many different news sites and still you will not have the full story.
What’s happened with the billions of dollars collected at 5-cents-per-barrel of crude oil since 1990, placed into the “Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund” for reparations and cleanup from accidents? Did the money go the way of the “Social Security Trust Fund” to support Congressional pet projects?
And in the mean time, the first Atlantic tropical depression probably will form today. Alex is very early, but then, despite all the global cooling cited by many here, the waters in the Atlantic are warmer right now than they were at any time last summer. Hmmmmm.
Do you really think that Admiral Than Allen reads every letter that he’s cc’ed on? Really? He is the overseer on this effort. He delegates responsibility to others, and that’s why he was not aware of an individual company’s efforts to get their boom purchased and the fact that their boom had failed quality control!
We are asking why it failed quality control as they said they have not been contacted…also, Thad may get many letters, but it is the duty of his office to address these things. This is an important matter not to be treated lightly.
Excuses are made while the Gulf is smothered in oil.
The LT seemed to know about the booms.. Manymanymany booms should have already been in place to put out in the event of a spill. They were not there as they should have been to start with!!!! They are not the end all but they will help. The LT gives reports to Thad. Remember the buck stops at the head of the beast!!
He needs to get something done and quit standing in Jindal’s way.
Quality concerns my sweet @$$.. Just plain stupidity and failure to follow through on protocol with the necessary equipment to the gulf will cost many jobs, and an ecosystem is at risk.
I was crying when they cut the riser, instead of pinching the leak closed. Why we can’t get anything done is because this is not being handled with professionals, no matter what their resume’s say. BP paniced and we are paying for it for years to come. We will see disspersant oil and death to wildlife, let alone the lost lives and business for years. We will see $4.00 gas again, who knows when, but someone will pay for BP’s ineptness.
Thank you admiral allen for doing your job! No one else have done morein this disaster than you have and I feel that more people should be appreciated that you are doing everything you could to fight this. Thank you and semper paratus