- The two wise American farmers who presented their hay
solution to dealing with the massive, burgeoning Gulf of Mexico oil slick
are right on the money.
-
- It's doubtful they remember, but the same technique was
used in the historic Santa Barbara Channel oil spill.
-
- On January 28, 1969, there was a blowout at an offshore
oil rig, Platform A, several miles off the coast of the city of Santa Barbara
in the Santa Barbara Channel.
-
- The spill galvanized national and world attention to
the potential nightmare and dangers of offshore drilling...
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Some of the efforts to contain small parts of
the oil slick with booms kept it relatively confined...
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- The loss of wildlife was considerable...
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Some dispersants were used but the best technique
turned out to be hay...
-
-
-
-
-
-
- The hay, endless of bales of it, were trucked
into Santa Barbara and driven out onto the Stearns Wharf pier where it
was loaded onto a small fleet of oil service boats, volunteer vessels and
a few barges.
-
- The smaller boats cruised through the oil while
men with pitchforks tossed hay from the decks of the boats down onto the
oil-covered water. A couple of the larger oil boats had big blowers which
were used to shoot streams of hay out over a much wider area of the water
around the boat. However, because no one was prepared for the disaster,
much of the work was done by hand...
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- The hay DID absorb and stick to the oil.. and
as the gooey black masses floated ashore, volunteers of all ages scooped
up the clumps from the surf and pulled and dragged them ashore. Scenes
similar to these will likely be repeated in many areas of the Gulf Coast
over the coming weeks and months...
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- On the beaches, the oil that had already washed
ashore, and was coming in with each wave, was covered with hay by hundreds
of workers.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- In the end, the oil-soaked hay was then scraped
up by heavy equipment, piled up and finally hauled away in dump trucks...
-
-
-
-
-
-
- So, I say 'Bravo!' to the two American farmers
and let's
get that hay moving to the Gulf NOW. -Jeff Rense
|
