Visualizing the Problem

Visualizing the problem of cleaning up the oil in the Gulf:

This remarkable picture is from the Guardian and it struck me as a way to describe the real challenge in cleaning up the Gulf. Now this is *just* the surficial oil, and likely close to shore. But everyone here has stood at the beach and watched the waves, so you know that there isn’t just one wave, but one every few seconds. Each wave is depositing oil on the beach. And this doesn’t show the sand — where oil will be left in the backwash. The source feeding this oil to each wave is massive and once the oil gets to the beach or wetlands, you can go get the fouled sand or vegetation at low tide, but it just returns. Look at that wave again.

Oil boom has been going up everywhere. There’s basically two types — calm to moderate water boom with an 18″ subsurface curtain and the ocean quality stuff that has a more rigid top frame and about 3 – 4′ of subsurface curtain. Boom can be (and routinely is) overtopped — look at that wave and think about how much bigger it would be in a storm or even waked — and is often undermined. And most of the oil is still submerged, beyond the corral of any boom. Skimmers take up surficial oil mainly. Which means that all of that submerged stuff continues moving with the complex currents of the Gulf and comes to the surface (where it can be cleaned up) unpredictably. Once the oil is on the shore, you can rake up or dig up the fouled sand, contain that sand and send it off for disposal. But you’ll be back at the next low tide,of course, because more oil has been coming up on your newly cleaned beach. If you are in a wetlands or a gravel or cobble beach, you may be able to do some raking, but mainly you are wiping stuff down with absorbent material — think of thick disposable toweling, except most of this is made from polypropylene.

Look at that wave again and then imagine 1000+ miles of that on the Gulf — 1000+ miles of shoreline and oil coming in on waves like that.

There’s no quick fixes here and people will be on those beaches for a few years — at least — cleaning the oil that comes to surface.