Is it true the Dutch have effective oil skimmers and that our government is forbidding their use?

This was posted a while ago here in DU. I've heard discussions in which the Dutch capabilities are mentioned, but have yet to hear anything really definitive.

A long series of google searches shed no light on it.

Here is a link to the article:

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-oil-spill-response-team-standby-us-oil-disaster

And here is a clip of it:

Two Dutch companies are on stand-by to help the Americans tackle an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. The two companies use huge booms to sweep and suck the oil from the surface of the sea. The US authorities, however, have difficulties with the method they use.

What do the Dutch have that the Americans don’t when it comes to tackling oil spills at sea? “Skimmers,” answers Wierd Koops, chairman of the Dutch organisation for combating oil spills, Spill Response Group Holland.

The Americans don’t have spill response vessels with skimmers because their environment regulations do not allow it. With the Dutch method seawater is sucked up with the oil by the skimmer. The oil is stored in the tanker and the superfluous water is pumped overboard. But the water does contain some oil residue, and that is too much according to US environment regulations.

US regulations contradictory
Wierd Koops thinks the US approach is nonsense, because otherwise you would have to store the surplus seawater in the tanks as well.

“We say no, you have to get as much oil as possible into the storage tanks and as little water as possible. So we pump the water, which contains drops of oil, back overboard.”

US regulations are contradictory, Mr Knoops stresses. Pumping water back into the sea with oil residue is not allowed. But you are allowed to combat the spill with chemicals so that the oil dissolves in the seawater. In both cases, the dissolved oil is naturally broken down quite quickly.

With all the dispersant in the water, there's NO technique that's going to get enough oil out of the water to satisfy the regs. Let them work!

I was amazed at how little is published/posted about it. The story to which I link is a Dutch site about which I have no information and therefore no ability to judge their reputation for veracity.

I snapped this at a local Starbucks. It was on the bulletin board and was a flyer asking for help here locally in the Clearwater Beach FL area to help with the oil clean up.

Notice how you cant help wash the oil off a duck unless your HAZMAT certified... Nice.

If you suck up oil and water, separate and store most of the oil on the ship, and pump the remaining oil and water overboard, it seems to me that you have considerably improved the situation.

My post was simply to find out of it is true. If true, *then* we can get pissed.

Here is a Danish paper about oil skimmers. If there is a magic Dutch solution, the paper doesn't describe it. But you might find the variety of skimmers interesting. There is a Dutch weir skimmer pictured.

http://www.iosc.org/papers/01708.pdf


I also found this book.

Oil spill response performance review of skimmers By Robert Schultz

http://books.google.com/books?id=WUtygDr3hWgC&pg=PR3&lpg=PR3&dq=oil+spill+skimmers&source=bl&ots=B5EdeJ6iks&sig=Hhqr_PoHJlhvkIbr_52lEV92qIU&hl=en&ei=l8b5S7DgFMT48Ab6ge36Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBzgo#v=onepage&q&f=false

But can't find a secondary source.

No corroboration. No denial. No nothing.

The story seems plausible and quite believable.

be worth trying!
Better "some" drops of oil in the seawater than GALLONS of oil in the seawater!

I've found references to skimmers helping clean up the Valdez spill.

More significantly, I was involved in setting up the Water Quality Insurance Syndicate back in the early 70s and a large part of it involved also setting up containment command centers that used booms and skimmers in the bays and ICW.

Skimmers aren't magic, though, and require several things to work properly, not the least of which are calm waters and a workable layer of oil in the water at reasonable depths. A sheen of oil in rough seas is better handled by dispersants, if handled at all.

(But, I've been away from all this for years, so many things could have changed.)

http://cgvi.uscg.mil/media/main.php?g2_itemId=857568&g2_imageViewsIndex=1

1005XX-N-1531D-086

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100507-N-1531D-086 - GULF OF MEXICO - (May 7, 2010) Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Jesse Stewart (right), from District 11 Response Advisory Team (DRAT), observes as Machinery Technician 2nd Class Andrew Johnson, from Atlantic Strike Team National Strike Force, visually examines seawater with possible oil contaminant aboard CGC Harry Claiborne (WLM 561). Harry Claiborne is currently equipped with a Vessel of Opportunity Skimming System (VOSS), which assists in the removal oil from the ocean surface. The U.S. Coast Guard is working in partnership with BP PLC, local residents, and other federal agencies to aid in preventing the spread of oil following the April 20 explosion on mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater Horizon. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (AW/SW) Jonathen E. Davis)

http://cgvi.uscg.mil/media/main.php?g2_itemId=879648

The story in the OP was about some hugely capable Dutch ships that the US will not allow to help because they return 5% of the skimmed oil back to the sea.

Again, I am asking if the story in the OP - about Dutch skimmer ships - is true, not if skimmers are in use at all.

and I answered with that since a lot of people here think the USCG is just seating pretty.

As to the dutch skimmers... there are many reasons why I doubt it... this sounds more like a slew of stories being pushed that are not true.

I have no doubt the Coast Guard - and every other US agency - is doing all they can with all they have.

http://www.koseq.com/ is the company's site.

http://www.emsa.europa.eu/Docs/other/action%20plan.pdf
has a description of the Prestige tanker spill. On page 44 there is a table which indicates that the great majority of the oil that was recovered in that spill was recovered by the three Dutch skimmer ships.

a lot more press if it had been true. i just did some searching and found a couple of cites of testing of a dutch skimmer, so i wonder, if there is any truth to it, if the thing had already been tested and found wanting.
:shrug: makes no sense.

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-oil-spill-respo...


Dutch oil spill response team on standby for US oil disaster

"Two Dutch companies are on stand-by to help the Americans tackle an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. The two companies use huge booms to sweep and suck the oil from the surface of the sea. The US authorities, however, have difficulties with the method they use.

What do the Dutch have that the Americans don’t when it comes to tackling oil spills at sea? “Skimmers,” answers Wierd Koops, chairman of the Dutch organisation for combating oil spills, Spill Response Group Holland.

The Americans don’t have spill response vessels with skimmers because their environment regulations do not allow it. With the Dutch method seawater is sucked up with the oil by the skimmer. The oil is stored in the tanker and the superfluous water is pumped overboard. But the water does contain some oil residue, and that is too much according to US environment regulations.

US regulations contradictory
Wierd Koops thinks the US approach is nonsense, because otherwise you would have to store the surplus seawater in the tanks as well.
“We say no, you have to get as much oil as possible into the storage tanks and as little water as possible. So we pump the water, which contains drops of oil, back overboard.”

US regulations are contradictory, Mr Knoops stresses. Pumping water back into the sea with oil residue is not allowed. But you are allowed to combat the spill with chemicals so that the oil dissolves in the seawater. In both cases, the dissolved oil is naturally broken down quite quickly.
It is possible the Americans will opt for the Dutch method as the damage the oil spill could cause to the mud flats and salt marshes along the coast is much worse, warns Wetland expert Hans Revier
“You have to make sure you clear up the oil at sea. As soon as the oil reaches the mud flats and salt marshes, it is too late. The only thing you can do then is dig it up. But then the solution is worse than the problem.”

snip

***********************************************************


otherwise......


"The leak in the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico could cause the worst ever oil pollution in the history of the United States. Until now oil platforms have seldom caused major environmental disasters. The biggest environmental disaster caused by an oil platform before now was in March 2001 when the P-36 belonging to Brazil's oil company Petrobras leaked. The oil slick measured 400 square kilometres. By comparison: the Deepwater Horizon spill already covers an area of almost 10,000 square kilometres.

Worst oil disaster until now in US the US tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989, which ran aground in William Sound off Alaska.
In 1978 360 kilometres of the coast of Brittany was polluted with oil from the Liberian tanker Amoco Cadiz, which broke in two.
In 1999 Erika, a tanker registered in Malta, ran into rocks off Brittany and polluted 200 kilometres of the French coastline.
In 1992 the Spanish Galician coast was polluted after the Greek tanker Aegean Sea broke in two and exploded.

Piper AlphaThe worst ever oil platform disaster was the explosion on the North sea platform Piper Alpha in July 1988, almost 200 kilometres north of Aberdeen in Scotland. 167 people were killed and the damage amounted to almost a billion euros. 62 workers survived, many of them by diving into the sea....."

Because if it is, that seems monumentally dumb.

But again, I have not seen this story corroborated anywhere else. I also don't know if the ships are in use now or not. Or if they are still (per the story you cite, which is the story cited in the OP) "standing by".

common sense, people, this story makes about as much sense as the one where it was claimed that bad guys were hijacking peruvian locals and boiling them down for fat to make beauty cream

i couldn't believe the long thread we had about THAT and then a few weeks later of course it's revealed that the story was pretty much a hoax created by one attention-seeking peruvian police officer

incredible claims require more than somebody with, literally, a weird name makes the incredible claim

i would be surprised if anybody named "weird koops" or "wierd knoops" even exists, if he was for real, maybe they could figure out one spelling for his name in the article

there are always negative people and internet hoaxsters in this world, particularly cruel was the hoax that the 11 men killed in the explosion were seen floating on an escape raft...a hoax posted the very first day of the crisis

i don't believe the skimmers are just sitting on the sidelines, and indeed, another poster has posted a link w. pix to show they are not just sitting there...

But speculation none the less.

The pictures posted upthread may or may not show a Dutch ship.

I am not at all saying the story is true. I am asking for corroboration. I see none one way or another.

I can't imagine skimmers sitting on the sidelines either.

There were offers of international aid to the US post-Katrina that were turned down. Even while the Superdome was still full of the living as the scattered dead were floating past, we turned down offers of assistance.

Now granted, this is an Obama led govt, not a Bush headed one, but I would imagine there are still those within the govt advising that we go it alone. I can only assume they believe that the US needing help somehow would damage its image as the world's leading superpower. Or something.

Will report back to you when I know more

Jeroen