I was sent this email:
I just got back in town. Who’s bright idea was it to use Road graders on the beach?! BP’s, the State? Who? Really?
I am sure you agree, this is terrible! It’s bad enough the wave surge pushes the chunks of caramel like petroleum product in the ground deeper, why in the world would you use heavy equipment on TOP of the area? I hope they are running perpendicular instead of parallel on the beach. If they keep doing this, even after the oil is gone, just like Valdez sediment, continues to leach oil to this day. Look it up on you tube, when researching for the City of GB on other these oil spills and what worked and didn’t, I found a
demonstration on youtube where to this day they can go out to Prince William Sound shoreline to what seems like a clean spot, dig a hole, fill it with water and oil seep up. I don’t think anyone wants our beaches like that.
Dig it up and renourish the area, sure we will lose beach but at least we will have one.
Can we use the weighted giant texturized erosion control mats or 50′ seawall fabric as a catch all instead of letting the caramel petroleum product seep in the ground? The heavier that product is, the more it will sink in the wet sand with the tidal surges, it would be helpful to engineer a ground barrier.. I don’t know who has the power to change the methods but this isn’t valvoline people, this is product that can’t be absorbed by absorbents only adsorbed. I also just discovered something else about this product that
may help with cleanup but I have to send it with my offshore skimmer guys in the Gulf to test it. I will keep you informed.
Anyway, this is a shock that doesn’t seem to have common sense or science as a back up.
I understand our SRIA and probably the County’s hands are tied somewhat but this is all about public interest because BP is the responsible party. Evidently, BP is tired of paying for guys to shovel? Keep shoveling if you have to but don’t put heavy equipment on top of wet sand with thick oil product on it..
Public interest will help our local Gov achieve what they need from the State. Help your local government and neighbors to work together to fight this long summer battle. Hopefully, the hurricane will break this product up to help the skimmer guys offshore catch this material. This thicker material is so bad the “Busters” skimmers are breaking apart.
We really need to pull the money together to have a full testing on this product to see how toxic and what the composition really is. I doubt BP will reimburse something that may hurt them in the run but it would be good to know what we are encountering. There is no local lab or university that can or has the experience to do this. I did the research there are only four in labs the US that can break down the composition. I find it hard to believe “none of this “product” is related to Deep Water Horizon oil fingerprint” then again from what I observed it may not be pure oil they are comparing this fingerprint too.