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On Grand Isle, Louisiana yesterday evening I witnessed National Guard troops take oil booms that just minutes before were laid out on the beach, and put them in a dumpster. The troops deployed no oil booms into the water; the booms were only out on the beach for about an hour.
I wrote last night about our first day in Grand Isle; we came to the fishing pier, which was still open and looked out over the beach into the gulf. As we arrived at the pier staircase, about a dozen workers in blue shirts and bright yellow vests drove out of the park while a half dozen people in National Guard uniforms in golf carts drove down the beach.
We walked down the pier and surveyed the oil residue beneath. A seagull picks on a decaying fish in an oil sheen. To our left there’s probably 200 yards of boom in the water around the bend of the island, but the bulk of the coastline has none. About 300 yards down the beach in the other direction, there’s about two dozen National Guard troops with backhoes, four wheelers, and some oil boom.
They laid out several rows of oil booms as we watched from the pier. About an hour after they laid it out, they went back and picked it all up. At the time, we thought it was odd that they would take time to lay out boom on the beach and then just put it back away.
We drive around the park and end up in the RV park, hoping to get someone to let us stand on their RV and view the military operation over the dune. ("To answer your question, not a chance in hell will you climb my RV.") I ask National Guard troops sitting at a picnic table if "Beach Closed" means the tops of the dunes are closed for viewing the operation. ("You can ask the five cops waiting for you on the other side.")
I pull into a parking space and Ivan and I talk about what to do. I turn my head and watch two National Guard members pull up their golf cart to a green dumpster. They unload big, orange oil booms one by one from the back of the cart, and throw them into the dumpster.
It’s unclear what purpose the operation on the beach was supposed to serve, and why it required dumping boom in dumpsters at the end. It could have been a training exercise for new troops for how to lay out booms; no one would answer my questions on the scene.
When we arrived at the park, we followed behind a flatbed army truck that had boom in what appeared to be a plastic wrap open on the back of the truck, so it’s not like dumpsters are the preferred mode of transportation for boom.
There was a satellite truck for a local ABC News station that was parked in front of the entrance of the dune operation. After we witnessed the booms being thrown into the dumpster, several people who appeared to be from a news crew in civilian clothes walked down from the other side of the dune and to the news truck. I wondered at the time if the boom was deployed on the beach for news crew b-roll, but have been unable to confirm or deny that either.
A diarist at Daily Kos provides a lesson in proper booming procedure, and comes to the conclusion that no visible booms out in the water are deployed properly. (Pardon the diarist’s French.)
Boom is not meant to contain or catch oil. Boom is meant to divert oil. Boom must always be at an angle to the prevailing wind-wave action or surface current. Boom, at this angle, must always be layered in a fucking overlapped sort-of way with another string of boom. Boom must always divert oil to a catch basin or other container, from where it can be REMOVED FROM THE FUCKING AREA. Looks kinda involved, doesn’t it? It is. [...] You can prevent most, by far most of the shoreline from ever being touched by more than a few transient molecules of oil. Done fucking properly, a week after the oil stops coming ashore, no one, man nor beast, can ever tell there has been oil anywhere near that shoreline.
I couldn’t find any pics of fucking proper fucking booming from along the Gulf, because there aren’t any.
Oil is not coming towards Grand Isle in any quantity significant enough yet, at this part of the beach, for boom to have directed enough oil into catch basins such that the boom is useless and should be thrown into a dumpster. So why is anyone throwing out oil boom that could be deployed around Grand Isle?
29 Comments
wow
wasn’t there a Katrina story just like this ? thanks again Michael, stay safe – bbl
Sheesh, that’s incredible.
Dare I say it?
Nothing is beneath the US government. But I just can’t figure out what the upside would be for a massive oil spill.
And I don’t buy into the conspiracy about passing Cap and Trade.
thanks for the up close view. Keep the image we keep seeing in the news of guys in white clothing shoveling up oil goo on the beach and putting it in plastic bags. The camera goes back to the man made oil gusher on the Gulf floor. Those two images are telling.
Keep us posted. Oh by the way I thought those beaches belong to the public.
“Nothing is beneath the US government. But I just can’t figure out what the upside would be for a massive oil spill.”
This shows that they are corrupt AND incompetent. Seriously, about the only things the Obama White House seems good at is making backroom deals, killing legislation like Dorgan and giving speeches. When comes to actually running the government, they seem to accomplish virtually nothing (it seems like they mostly spend time rehashing Bush plans while claiming the ideas as their own) and are pretty incompetent just having the government run. Obama should have stayed in the Senate – or better yet he should have been voted out of the Senate.
Will Prince Potemkin’s heirs sue for patent infringement?
You know, you’re spot on about the incompetence.
Was thinking about that yesterday.
In “All The President’s Men,” “Deep Throat” (Hal Holbrook) says, “Forget how the media portrays the White House. Fact is, these aren’t very bright guys.”
This is reminding me more of the EVOS every day, only it is way, way different, and far more scary. My bodyguard, who worked the EVOS from beginning to end, has many tales like that of these guys throwing the booms into a common dumpster.
Who is giving the orders BP or Obama and why would they want oil booms thrown in the dumpster?
This was my exact thought upon reading the headline and the first couple paragraphs of the post. I was going to ask if there were any camera people on hand while they were laying the boom out on the beach, but you answered that question for us!
Thanks again for the reporting, Michael.
I heard when Obama was on the way to his little PhotoOp at the Solyndra Solar factory here in my town today, he stopped at an ARCO(BP) station to gas up his limos! /s
Kabuki. Which is why the BP CEO was ordering American citizens off a public beach in the United States. The only “incompetence” they are displaying is the absolute lack of ability to play their roles believably.
Of course! What else would a DINO fill up with?
Oh, what a bloody tool!
Well, it was BP who was ordering American citizens off a public beach.
Resist, resist, resist…. It’s in bad taste Margaret….resist.
you can’t? I can: if the oil spew continues at the rate it’s spewing, soon the gulf will be useless for anything other than oil drilling.
No seafood + no wildlife + no tourism = no need for environmental regulations and expanded drilling.
It will continue. For months. The general conclusion I’ve drawn from all the scientific analysis, hard-nosed reporting, and information at large is that there is no way to stop the leak short of drilling relief wells. This will take months. All this “top kill” and “containment dome” bullshit is just smoke and mirrors. There is no method that has worked, from what I’ve read, on underwater leaks but drilling relief wells.
I couldn’t agree more. This is like bad HS improv.
yup.
BP has dug itself, and the country, into a very deep hole. Pun intended. By the time this is over, the gulf of mexico is going to be worthless to anyone.
wait until you see the exodus as the jobs disappear. i wonder if there will be riots?
Good on you, Michael.
Some questions; who put up the hand-lettered sign?
Why would anyone object to someone climbing to the top of a dune and taking a wide-angle shot of the beach and what was going on?
(That one’s rhetorical: They would object because, both local law-enforcement in coastal Louisiana and the National Guard have been suborned to try to help cover British Petroleum’s ass.)
How close could someone in a small boat get to the beaches that have been oiled? Is that 65 miles of coast that Jindall spoke of a couple of days ago ALL off limits to the public, or just the rookeries, “to protect the birds”. (Joan Rivers’ finger-down-throat gag gesture, right about here.)
Kris can you imagine what a shot of Obama’s entourage filling up at a BP station would be worth? :o)
The photog could move into the White House with the first family. :o)
Woops; forgot to ask. What about small planes flying over the beaches?
Will Coast Guard or DEA planes shoot them down, or just follow them to their airport and confiscate them?
How about this for a press release:
“All government resources are being marshalled to deal with this tragedy.”
(We’re using every military/law enforcement person who’s allowed to carry a firearm, to control the visual recording of this monumental fuckup, and keep it out of the media. It’s hard work, but we’re doing a heck of a job, america.”
Bmaz has a fresh cross-post available: Top Kill Discussion Thread
There are 3 BP branded (by way of ARCO, a western subsid) stations here in town. I would’ve loved to catch them at one. I’m assuming, however, that they fill up well in advance of POTUS’s arrival and do not, under any circumstances, stop at gas stations while he’s on board.
It would be a fucking phenomenally damning photo, though.
The rats have loosed a plague upon the people of Louisiana.
Those volatile organic compounds (VOC) and hydrogen sulfide vapor concentrations are piling up victims now, tomorrow, and for decades.
What’s BP doing for the sick, if anything?
I’ve been tempted to start a picket action at the nearest BP filling station I can find. And hope millions do the same. How do I find out whether a gas station is owned by the company vs. by a small-biz-person franchisee, since I wouldn’t want to inadvertently hurt that individual?
Gee…I wonder if there could be some other rational explanation?
Just askin’.
Uhh, Sinclair?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Oil_Corporation: