The year was 1989, on March 24^th the Exxon Valdez struck Prince William Sound’s Bligh Reef resulting in the spillage of 250,000 barrels of crude oil which has gone down in history as one of the country’s worst environmental disasters, until present day. Clean up efforts were thwarted by the remote location and extensive [1300 mile] coastline effected.

By noon March 25^th the Alaska Regional Response team was brought together, involving the US Coast Guard, Alaska’s Department of Conservation, NOAA and the EPA. Shortly thereafter specialists from the Hubbs Marine Institute of San Diego and The International Bird Research Center of Berkley set up centers to clean and rehabilitate wildlife.

Within ten days cleanup operations were fully up and operational; thirteen skimmers were operating and a total of 8,200 barrels of oil had been recovered. Then Alaska Governor Cowper accepted an offer from the Soviet Union to send a 425-foot, 11,400 ton skimmer to PWS.

Thousand of cleanup workers were recruited to the effort to mitigate the disaster without the experience to deal with the scope of this disaster. Decades later the effects of the Valdez spill are still evident in the environment and the workers who were engaged in the cleanup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgjo-4UnBF0&feature=related

Fast forward to present day, on April 20^th 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killing 11 and creating an environmental disaster that is exponentially worse that the Vadez catastrophe. BP has been the first responder to this catastrophe and has finally succeeded in placement of The LMRP cap on top of the LMRP at approximately 8:35 pm CDT on June 3.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has the responsibility to protect, preserve, manage and restore the United States Coastal resources and ecosystems along 96,000 miles of the United States Shoreline. The EPA has statutory authority under the Clean Water Act Par 311 (1973) and the Oil Pollution Act (1990). Yet according to unnamed sources NOAA’s ship remained in port for two-three days in the aftermath of theDeepwater Horizon oil platform explosion.

The US Coast Guard was officially involved primarily with BP in an advisory capacity to provided estimates as to the scope and potential threat of the disaster.   Mitigation efforts were conducted by BP alone. James Carville has done more to mobilize cleanup efforts after his scathing evaluation of the administration’s lack of leadership. Only now is the administration finally sitting up and taking notice in light of the political collateral damage.

Coast Guard efforts in the cleanup have been severely weakened because of the administrations slashing of the Guards budget by $100 million and no emergency funding has been forthcoming only as of today June 10, 2010.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/05/Massive-Oil-Spill-Makes-Case-for-Reversing-Obama-Coast-Guard-Cuts

If winning the war on the gulf spill to save American’s coastline is to be successful the use of booms and skimmers become essential. Our winning hope for this war is nicely exemplified by the Coast Guard Cutter Walnut, which just left Hawaii for her 6,000-mile journey to the Gulf.

“The Walnut is 225-feet long, has a crew of about 50 people, and boasts state-of-the-art communications equipment and oil skimming capabilities,” reports Minna Sugimoto for Hawaii News Now. “Designed after the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989, the Walnut comes equipped with a boom and pump oil collection system.”

The Walnut was dispatched May 30^th, 40 days after the event, it is the most sophisticated ship in the Coast Guard fleet designed to mitigate the effects of oil spill disasters, but required 40 days to be dispatched and will not reach the Gulf until mid-June.

 http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/800/575095/

This disaster required an immediate and bifurcated approach to mitigating the damage, with BP responsible for closure/capture of escaping oil and the government responsible for cleanup efforts. Instead the administration sat on the sidelines; when public outrage drew the attention of the administration the response has been to point fingers, assess blame and threaten litigation. Offer of help from other nations has been forthcoming and refused; “13 entities had offered assistance with the Gulf oil spill cleanup including Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations.”

http://bigthink.com/ideas/19996