about the process on this end.
U.S. and BP slow to accept Dutch expertise
By LOREN STEFFY Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle
June 8, 2010, 10:13PM
Three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help.
It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.
The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,'” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.
Their process isn't anything like it, because their government owns the cleanup equipment:
Many in the U.S., including the president, have expressed frustration with the handling of the cleanup. In the Netherlands, the response would have been different, Visser said.
There, the government owns the cleanup equipment, including the skimmers now being deployed in the Gulf.
“If there's a spill in the Netherlands, we give the oil companies 12 hours to react,” he said.
If the response is inadequate or the companies are unprepared, the government takes over and sends the companies the bill.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/7043272.htmlSo who has the smarter plan, right out of the gate?
But that aside, Weird Koops (one of the Dutch system's engineers) says that while recovered oil can be reused as fuel for larger tankers, the cost of its recovery exceeds the benefits of its reuse. Think that might have been one possible factor in BP's lack of interest, at least, in the system.
They (BPUSCG) had to be pushed, and the Dutch said they finally had to go thru the State Dept. USCG finally ordered them on May 18.
Dutch companies that manufacture the sweeping arm system first contacted BP officials April 23, three days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, according to Mr. Huisman, who spoke by phone from his office in The Hague Tuesday. After receiving little reply, the companies turned to his department for help in reaching out to the US State Department, Huisman says.
“We specifically asked those companies that if you have a firm order from BP or the US government, then we can make the arrangements available,” he says. The US Coast Guard made a formal request for the systems May 18, according to Huisman.
Sjon Huisman is an adviser with the Netherlands’s Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management. More about the Dutch system and their own comments about it here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0601/BP-oil-spill-Will-the-sweeping-arm-system-from-the-Dutch-helpand here:
In many cases, this equipment is being provided by private companies -- at BP's expense. And like other elements of the joint response, decision-making has been complicated because federal officials must consult with the oil giant before signing off on any offer.
"The coordination on this side of the ocean was not completely clear," said Floris van Hovell, press counselor for the Dutch Embassy in Washington, adding that when a Dutch official was seeking to broker an aid agreement last month, "it was for a long time unclear on where he should go to and who should take the decision."
According to government sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed to the White House several weeks ago, suggesting that it needed some foreign aid for practical and diplomatic reasons.
BP declined to comment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/13/AR2010061304232_2.html
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