Deepwater Horizon: Dutch Point Of View

In Dutch media I'm reading an increasing criticism regarding the response to the oil spill in the Mexican Gulf and the use of their expertise and equipment.

So, first, the timeline according to the Dutch press and press-releases from Dutch companies and governments:

• April 25. Only 3 days after the accident with the oil platform the Dutch offered their skimmers to combat the oil spill. According to the Dutch consul-general in Housten the reaction of the American government was that help was not needed, because they could handle it themselves.

• May 6. Dutch research institute Deltares and dredging company Van Oord propose an inovative concept to combat the oil spill. The US government has been alerted to the existence of this proposal through the contacts that have been established between the 2 governments since hurricane Katrina.

• May 12. Jo Ellen Darcy, the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works), visits Deltares.

Although this must be a visit that has been planned months in advance, I would expect the visit would now focus heavily on the concept proposed on 6 May.

• May 28. The Dutch have offered 3 sets of sweeping arms, after a US request. T&T Marine Salvage, which has been hired by BP, will use these skimmers. They should be operational next week.

• June 16. Boskalis has gotten a contract to deliver sand to make barriers to protect the Lousiana coast, based on the proposal from May 6.

In my opinion this is pretty fast. Two bad choices had to be weighed carefully, but doing nothing would guarantee an ecological disaster and this might help without creating an ecological disaster. Deltares and Boskalis must have been astounded at the speed of which it went, since they are more used to the speed Dutch governments work at.

And now for the critique.
One thing that always pops up is the Jones Act, or more correctly Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act from 1920. In practice the Act means that foreign vessels can't be employed in the oil spill.
Boskalis has a local company, Stuyvesant Dredging with a US flagged ship, so that's how they were able to get a contract.

The US thinks that the sand barriers will take 9 months to be completed, but Belgian dredgers claim they can do it in 4. They also say the Jones Act is the reason the US is using antiquated technology to combat the oil spill. The European companies, of which the Dutch and Belgians ones are seen as the best in the field by most, buy their ships in the Middle East for only halve the cost of building it in the US.

The company that manufactures the skimmers that have been sent, has said that had the US allowed them from the beginning to use their skimmers they could have done this clean-up with their eyes closed. This is because the skimmers have the capacity to clean up the amount of oil that is leeking in 7 hours.
They also say the USCG was well aware of the skimmers and have visited the company 3 times in the past.

But now the skimmers are in use, the company that manufactures them says they are not being used right. They say communication with the Americans is going slowly and they do not listen to the Dutch instructors. Currently only 5% of their actual capacity is being used, because BP is sending the ships too close to the source. The problem is that the oil is not very thick there, reducing the effectiveness of the skimmers.
The communication between the USCG, BP and T&T Marine could also be a lot better, the Dutch company says. Now it is 'too many chiefs, not enough indians'.
Cargo capacity is also a problem, and because of the Jones Act, foreign ships with a cargo capacity 3 times that of US ships cannot be deployed.

From what I read in the Dutch (and to a lesser extend Belgian) press it reminds me of hurricane Katrina in 2 ways. The first is that the inital US response was: help is not needed.
The second is that it is unclear who is in charge, at least for those on this side of the Atlantic who want to help.

What surprises me, is the huge say BP seems to still have in the way the operation goes. I would expect the USCG to have hired T&T Marine Salvage to use the skimmers and just forward the bill to BP.

Using some replenishment oilers from the MSC should easily solve the problem of the cargo capacity.

I Smell Media Bullshit

Watch the video first.

I am having a seriously hard time believing that the US Coast Guard, which was at the time under the command of Admiral Thad Allen, was the responsible party withholding this information from the public for BP.

ABC's news report is bending over the stripper pole naked at the town square to cover for someones political ass with such a suggestion. Who covered for BP?

I, and I think most well informed Americans, are pretty much going to require a confession to believe it was Admiral Thad Allen. I'm also going to need a hell of a lot of evidence that is was Admiral Landry, the Coast Guard Admiral this ABC video implies in the report. These folks take orders from our elected civilian leaders - they don't make policy.

US Admirals, Navy or Coast Guard, don't put companies before citizens during crisis and emergencies - which is what ABC is basically trying to imply with this reporting.

With ABC throwing the Coast Guard leadership under the bus with this report, perhaps they didn't realize that this likely means we will find an Admiral called to testify under oath to spill the beans. This is going to get very ugly, because the truth will come out if an Admiral is forced to answer the question under oath - and it doesn't take a mental giant to recognize that the person who almost certainly prevented the public from seeing these BP videos is a political official somewhere between Janet Napolitano and the President himself.