Who knew? Kevin Costner's super-slurpers to clean up BP spill

No reasonable person believes the President is solely responsible for the BP oil explosion. Nor do they think he should don deep-sea gear and go down and cork the hole himself. The well itself is some 12,000 feet under water, with the burst pipe at around 5,000 feet. Obviously, these are not friendly working conditions.

What people do want is their President to act like a leader and make the containment and clean up process as efficient and effective as possible, while BP works on capping the well. Unfortunately, our government, under the President's authority, seemingly has done everything but make the containment/clean up process as easy as possible.

W. Wansley at American Thinker wrote a great piece comparing Katrina and BP, "In the Gulf, a group of people have been trying to get in -- to apply American ingenuity to clean up the oil spill or prevent it from reaching the shore." Unfortunately, they "have been held up -- by government."

We are now hearing more about these rejected possible solutions to bar, contain and clean up the oily water before it reaches the shores. One of the pleas came from Governor Bobby Jindal. "...Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has begged for approval to put up temporary sand bars as a barrier to the oil. The EPA, worse than saying no, delayed and studied and pondered and then said no." Tired of waiting for BP, Jindal gave the order to build them on Monday.

From Am. Thinker: "We have seen countless stories in the news of innovation and ingenuity by Americans attempting to bring proven applications, equipment and tactics to bear on the oil. Each attempt is met with the same federal dithering, inaction and impedance. ... In the Gulf oil spill,...After they show their process to the media, the inevitable question is asked, 'Have you shown this to BP or the EPA?'" They answer, "yes, ...they are considering it" or "they would get back to us".

But at long last, enter actor Kevin Costner. An actor? Yes, but also a partner in Ocean Therapy Solutions, a company that has developed a machine that separates oil from water. Last week he testified at the House Science and Technology Committee meeting.

Even Costner, ever so diplomatically, said, "'We’re coming to this fight very late, I think everybody would recognize that. And so we’re going to do the things that we can do but this company is poised to mobilize in order to step this up and to create an environment where people can go back to work. There is a single moment that exists right at this moment and that is there are people out of work. There’s a moratorium and there’s no way to lift that unless I believe the government feels that people can operate in a safe way. This represents that pivot point.' "

"'If we want to discuss the ‘what ifs’ looking back, I think you could fill in the blanks of understanding if these machines were already deployed, what we would be looking at,' said Costner. 'I could scale this out for you and we would be chasing this oil out at the derrick itself. We couldn’t do anything about the size of the leak but we would be chasing that and we would be keeping that offshore.'"


Well, better late than never. BP recently placed an order for 32 of these clean up machines. With an efficiency rate of 99+%, it should help. Some are not so optimistic.

For everyone's sake, I hope between Costner's centrifuge machines, sand bars, siphon tankers, and other clean up measures, they will help clean up the water and prevent further damage. Time will tell.

Read the complete article: Heritage Foundation: Crisis of Competence
American Thinker: Katrina and BP, Two Sides of the Same Coin
Kevin Costner Says Early Use of Oil-Cleanup Machine Could Have Kept Gulf Oil Spill Offshore

Links: Practically Speaking, Betterbrookfield, RandyMelchert, Jay Weber, Vicki McKenna, The Right View Wisconsin, CNS News, Mark Levin, Breitbart BigGovernment, The Heritage Foundation