If anyone out there still harbors any doubts as to the absolute ineptitude of President Obama and the abject failure of the Obama administration to deal with the BP oil spill, read this.

Because the four Dutch skimmers remove oil from the seawater and pump it back into the ocean, and EPA regulations forbid the discharge of water containing any oil into the ocean, the Obama administration declined the offer of the use of four skimmers that would have removed about 146,000 barrels of oil a day from the Gulf of Mexico! This failure of Obama and his appointees to recognize how absolutely ludicrous it was to apply EPA regulations to preclude the actual removal of millions of gallons of oil from the seas is beyond belief!

That means that by now, over 50 days into the crisis, over 7,300,000 barrels of oil could have, and should have, been removed if Obama had made a sensible decision at the outset. That's 321,200,000 gallons of oil (44 gallons/barrel) that would not now be fouling the sands of the Gulf States and clogging the marshes and killing wildlife!

U.S. Government Finally Permits Dutch Skimmers to Help

After initially declining,
U.S. Government officials have decided to accept an offer from the Dutch
government to send four large oil skimmers to the site of the BP
Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil skimmers are
large arms that can be used by oil tankers to pump oil and water from
the ocean surface into the tankers. The oil then rises to the top, while
the water sinks to the bottom. The water is then pumped back out to
sea, making space for more oil. Each system can collect 5,000 tons of
oil each day.

Unlike the US, the Dutch have developed effective
rapid response systems for oil spills. The Dutch skimming system has
been used successfully in a number of smaller spills in Europe.

The
Dutch first offered to fly their skimmer arm systems to the Gulf just a
few days after the oil spill started. However, the offer was declined
by EPA officials, who cited restrictions against pumping any water with
oil in it into the ocean (no matter how much oil was removed, no matter
the overall environmental gain, in the process). No system can keep all
the oily water in the ship.

One ton of oil is equal to
approximately 7.3 barrels, so 5,000 tons a day is about 36,500 barrels
per day. Collectively, the four skimmers can take up to 146,000 barrels
per day.

The Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell is one of the
largest global energy companies. Unlike the US, the Dutch have invested
time and money developing state of the art rapid response systems for
oil spills. The Dutch system has been used successfully in smaller
European spills.

Dutch government officials in the Netherlands
first offered to deliver their skimmer arm systems to the spill site
just three days after the oil spill began. The story is the subject of
an article by Yobie Benjamin for the Chronicle.

At the time, says
Benjamin, U.S. officials rejected the offer because EPA regulations
prohibit the discharge of water that contains oil into the ocean. He
points out that by initially rejecting the Dutch offer, US officials
missed an opportunity to collect much more oil and possibly to mitigate
the damage.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/6072778-us-finally-...