We have the spill under control, we don’t need your help. That is apparently the message our government is sending to the world. Amazingly arrogant and simplistically stupid. It’s painfully obvious that our cobbled-together bureaucracy can’t get its arms around the problem.
Three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help.
It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.
The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.
The Dutch just might know a thing or two about environmental engineering around marshlands and when you live below sea level you don’t muck around contemplating leaks.
U.S. ships are being outfitted this week [reported June 8th] with four pairs of the skimming booms airlifted from the Netherlands and should be deployed within days. Each pair can process 5 million gallons of water a day, removing 20,000 tons of oil and sludge.
The Dutch ships could have spent the last month operating 24/7 but no, someone decided that wasn’t necessary. The Dutch aren’t the only country we’ve turned down – twelve countries and the United Nations have been turned away. In keeping with the administration’s promise of transparency, the media had to repeatedly push the State Department to find out which countries had offered help.
When State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley refused to tell reporters which countries have offered assistance to help respond to the BP oil spill, the State Department press corps was flabbergasted.
“As a policy matter, we’re not going to identify those offers of assistance until we are able to see, you know, what we need, assess the ongoing situation. And as we accept those offers of assistance, we will inform you,” Crowley said.
Not only are we stiff-arming nations ready and willing to help, the Feds are reigning in local efforts.
Five weeks ago Escambia County officials requested permission from the Mobile Unified Command Center to use a sand skimmer, a device pulled behind a tractor that removes oil and tar from the top three feet of sand, to help clean up Pensacola’s beaches.
I’m not sure why county and state officials are waiting on blessings from DC – screw the Feds, do what needs to be done and sort out the details later.
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As far as the States/Local Governments are concerned, …”It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to seek permission.”
Exactly!
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