The Oil Spill and what YOU can do

Current Events: BP Oil Spill

(http://lavalleybeat.com/)

By: Production Assistant Jennie Kamin

Since April 20, 2010, the British-based global energy powerhouse, British Petroleum (BP), has grown continuously synonymous with the words “oil spill.” Nearly eighty days and at least 200 million gallons of crude oil later , the gulf coast is facing the greatest environmental disaster in American history.

One website, if itwasmyhome.com , allows internet-surfers to visualize the spill by placing a black murky image scaled to the size of the spill over a map of their home city. As gulf-coast neighbors, Houstonians need not view the image of black oil spanning a radius from Lufkin to Freeport in order to capture the magnitude of this disaster. On the contrary, in order to witness the devastation firsthand, Houstonians merely have to look in their own backyards, (or at least just beyond the horizons of their beachfront Galveston getaways).

Millions are aware of the damages, but as the world grows frustrated, the question remains: What can gulf coast residents do to help? One multinational organization, ACS Industries, Inc. sought an answer to that same question. ACS Industries, Inc. manufactures knitted wire mesh technologies. Their separations and mass-transfer division is located in Houston . As the original designers and manufacturers of oil/water separators mounted in the hull of MSRC vessels, ACS’ claim to fame is engineering and manufacturing 32 units for oil clean-up responder ships. If you are like me and do not follow engineering jargon, in layman’s terms, this design enabled massive clean-up efforts in the 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill. For this, ACS won the Vaaler award .

The separators mounted on the MSRC ships were designed to run 550 gallons/minute each. This means that each ship has the capacity to separate over 1,000 gallons/minute of oily water. Despite their positive track records with the Exxon-Valdez spill, ACS’ units have been unused in relief efforts for the gulf-coast spill. In fact, ACS contacted BP’s Chief Operating Officer of Exploration, Doug Suttles, members of the Obama Administration and other officials, offering their support. As ACS understands it, the oil in this particular spill cannot be separated in their units. In order to help the cause, they have designed another vessel that could be manufactured very quickly. This vessel would potentially be able to separate the oil from the water at a combined rate of 600,000 gallons per hour. All ACS would need in order to process these vessels are samples of the oil to test. Getting samples has been impossible and none of the company’s 10 ships currently in the gulf are being used.

I contacted BP’s general answering service to ask why they have not responded to ACS’ offer. To this the agent with whom I spoke replied, “…we have tons and tons of submissions..20,000 thousand in one day...there is a chance they haven’t gotten to it yet.”

In search of more answers on how gulf coast residents can do their part, I contacted the Sierra Club and asked about volunteer opportunities. As hazmat work requires a significant amount of professional training, hands-on volunteer opportunities are better left to the professionals at this point. The Sierra Club did recommend, however, that civilians spend time writing letters and urging the Obama administration to move away from oil and into alternative energy. In addition, donates made to the Sierra Club will aid campaigns that lead us to such alternative energy sources .

Another organization, the National Audubon Society , provides multiple ways in which gulf coast residents, or anyone for that matter, can help. By following the steps provided on their website, volunteers and concerned citizens can donate, stay informed and even lend their support through volunteering. By filling out information on experience and interest, the Audubon Society works to match concerned parties with relief organizations related to wildlife rescue. Their website also provides an easy step-by-step form for citizens so they can send email letters to members of Senate urging them to fund gulf coast restoration. Regardless of political preference, gulf coasters can agree that the devastation caused by this spill is tremendous. As such, a few organizations are working to answer the question: what can we do to help? There are a few things that residents can do in order to channel their frustration into taking action. In addition, ordinary citizens should follow the advice of the Sierra Club and insist that their representatives endorse alternative energy. After the moratorium is lifted on offshore drilling, we can also urge the government to continue to put pressure on oil companies to fortify their safety measures so that this kind of disaster never happens again.