Since oil started spewing from the ocean floor and fowling Louisiana’s coast and waters, our newsroom, probably like many others, has been beseeched and overrun with ideas on how to plug the leak nearly a mile down. To combat the helplessness that many feel, the ideas have ranged from the serious to the insane (one included putting a deflated football in the pipe and then pumping it up, no kidding), but one idea profiled in “Esquire” is one that has worked before to clean a massive oil spill.
Esquire: The Secret, 700-Million-Gallon Oil Fix That Worked — and Might Save the Gulf
Mark Warren writes “in an interview with former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister, the untapped solution involves using empty supertankers to suck the spill off the surface, treat and discharge the contaminated water, and either salvage or destroy the slick.
“Hofmeister had been briefed on the strategy by a Houston-based environmental disaster expert named Nick Pozzi, who has used the same solution on several large spills during almost two decades of experience in the Middle East — who says that it could be deployed easily and should be, immediately, to protect the Gulf Coast.”
This was the idea that James Carville torched the Obama administration for not using in a television appearance.
“The suck-and-salvage technique was developed in desperation across the Arabian Gulf following a spill of mammoth proportions — 700 million gallons — that has until now gone unreported, as Saudi Arabia is a closed society, and its oil company, Saudi Aramco, remains owned by the House of Saud. But in 1993 and into '94, with four leaking tankers and two gushing wells, the royal family had an environmental disaster nearly sixty-five times the size of Exxon Valdez on its hands, and it desperately needed a solution.”
NPR: Want To Help Report The Oil Spill? There's An App For That
Massive plumes of oil floating in your territorial waters? Oil fouling your coastline?
Yes, there is an iPhone App for that.
National Public Radio's Andy Carvin reports: “Oil Reporter lets you to snap a picture of the oil or tar ball, describe the context and offer additional details regarding wildlife and wetlands impact. When you submit your report, the app detects your location using your phone’s GPS, so your report can be pinpointed on a map.”
