BP Fails Booming School 101

Most companies that deal in commodities do.. They don't interact well with the public or for that matter with the environment. Their margins are thin and the true cost of what they are exploiting (Environment Risk and Social Risk) is never determined. It is why they still call this crap in the ocean, covering marsh lands and wildlife 'Product'. I think there is about to be a reckoning...

Satirist Harry Shearer played the entire audio portion, with minimal bleeps, on his radio show from New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, but no one seems to have done any follow up on its scandalous allegations.

In less than an hour, I managed to find genuine independent scientific documentation of the F***ing Works, vs. F***ing Doesn't Work claims made in the anonymous video.

The Oil and Hazardous Materials Simulated Environmental Test Tank, OHMSETT, is the only facility that offers full scale conditions for training in oil recovery from spills. It was built and operated by the EPA from 1974-1987, when responsibility was transferred to the Navy because it is located at the Naval Weapons Station.

Title VII of the Ocean Pollution Act of 1990 gave MMS the lead responsibility for reactivation of Ohmsett in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. The MMS was also charged with the continuing operation and maintenance of the facility as a national test facility. The MMS refurbished Ohmsett beginning in 1990 and reopened it for testing in 1992. Costs for the yearly operation and maintenance of Ohmsett are covered by the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

They claim their wave generating machine and pool simulates actual ocean conditions. Watch the videos and see for yourself if it mimics typical wave conditions we see in televised coverage of oil spills. The last video shows how booms are configured to funnel oil to a collection device. How many times have any boom funnels been shown deployed on oil spills, much less anything, or any one actually collecting anything? All I ever see is very long, single lines of booms, usually with oil on both sides:

http://ohmsett.com/training.html

Here is an excerpt from a visiting environmental consultant during a series of tests conducted at OHMSETT in 2003, observing booming with a secondary containment row:

http://www.pwsrcac.org/docs/d0032200.pdf

.. observation of the water surface clearly shows the difference in surface texture where the smoother surface oil is contained within the primary experimental zone on the right hand side of the boom compared to the more choppy water surface between the primary boom and the secondary containment boom in the center of the photograph. Also, note that there is absolutely no surface oil outside of the secondary containment zone on the left side of the photograph.

... little or no oil outside the secondary containment boom near the end of the test),

... Including the oil trapped within the secondary containment boom clearly minimizes the amount of oil that had escaped from the experimental system in earlier OHMSETT tests.
PDF p.37 = field notes and taped observations, p.10

BP â Beelzebub's Posse.

hey Wonkadelica, saw your post about Ohmsett and was wondering if you'd be interested in chatting. I'm a reporter at Platts Inside Energy in DC, e-mail me at tom_lobianco (at) platts (dot) com

Why isn't our government getting the scimmmers from every where to help with the cleen up they are standing buy and wondering why no one has called