Saturday, June 26, 2010

SNAFU In the Gulf of Mexico Part Two

We take you back in time to a point-21 years ago and the Exxon Valdez disaster:
"When the Exxon Valdez oil tanker accident occurred off the coast of Alaska in 1989, a Dutch team with clean-up equipment flew in to Anchorage airport to offer their help. To their amazement, they were rebuffed and told to go home with their equipment. The Exxon Valdez became the biggest oil spill disaster in U.S. history--until the BP Gulf spill."

Fast forward 21 years and once again: "Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway." "To protect against the possibility that its equipment wouldn't capture all the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch also offered to prepare for the U.S. a contingency plan to protect Louisiana's marshlands with sand barriers. One Dutch research institute specializing in deltas, coastal areas and rivers, in fact, developed a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long sand dikes within three weeks."


Incredibly, once again the Dutch teams were told by our very own Yankee Govt. to get lost. Sick. Just sick. Read. It. All. Remember in November....
The Avertible Catastrophe @ The Financial Post

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