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Pretty pathetic, I thought I’ve heard and seen most BS this time around … nice bleach white trousers, brand new rakes and shovels. Men hardly knowing how to pose for the photo-op, worse in a pose that they are “cleaning-up” the beaches. Oops, president is gone … so are we!
(CNN) – A Gulf Coast official accused BP of shipping workers into Grand Isle, Louisiana, for President Barack Obama‘s visit to the oil-stricken area Friday and sending them away once the president left the region.
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The Gulf's silent environmetal crisis
Early Friday morning, “a number of buses brought in approximately 300 to 400 workers that had been recruited all week,” Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts told CNN’s “Situation Room.”
Roberts said the workers were offered $12 an hour to come out to the scene at Grand Isle and work in what he called a “dog and pony show.”
But, when Obama departed, so did the workers, he said, adding that he’s never seen more than 20 workers at the Grand Isle cleanup site since the effort started.
JP Councilman Chris Roberts called Friday’s mobilization of workers, a dog and pony show.
“These individuals are working out in the heat of the sun. These are long days. They start early in the morning and they stop early in the evening,” he said. “So the fact that they were leaving the location late in the afternoon was not unusual. It’s not associated with the president arriving.”
The company hired to provide the cleanup workers told WWL, a New Orleans-based radio station, said it was told to beef up the cleaning workforce five days ago.
“No, I did not put extra workers on the job because the president was coming,” said Donald Nalty of Environmental Safety and Health, which was contracted by BP to help in the cleanup effort.
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Fears realised as oil spill hits Louisiana marshes (AFP/News.com.au)
(RNW) May 4, 2010 – Two Dutch companies are on stand-by to help the Americans tackle an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. The two companies use huge booms to sweep and suck the oil from the surface of the sea. The US authorities, however, have difficulties with the method they use.
What do the Dutch have that the Americans don’t when it comes to tackling oil spills at sea? “Skimmers,” answers Wierd Koops, chairman of the Dutch organisation for combating oil spills, Spill Response Group Holland. The Americans don’t have spill response vessels with skimmers because their environment regulations do not allow it.
US regulations are contradictory, Mr Knoops stresses. Pumping water back into the sea with oil residue is not allowed. But you are allowed to combat the spill with chemicals so that the oil dissolves in the seawater. In both cases, the dissolved oil is naturally broken down quite quickly.
It is possible the Americans will opt for the Dutch method as the damage the oil spill could cause to the mud flats and salt marshes along the coast is much worse, warns Wetland expert Hans Revier.
Dutch to Provide Assistance in Clean Up of Gulf Oil Spill – May 28, 2010
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
