How money still comes first.

For a disaster of this proportion, you expect ALL AVALAIBLE equipment, materials, experts, ingeniors, booms, oil vessels, sweep arms, skimmers, dredging systems,workmen ... are being used to try to prevent as much as environmental damage possible.

Unfortunately, that is not even resembling reality.
There are a lot of problems occuring:

One is the fact that BP is in charge of this whole operation itself. BP is the one too that will need to pay for this disaster as well so ... BP is too the one which determines who it wants too work for them and who may not! Obviously, BP is - like usual - not giving environmental impact of the oil a priority.

In many cases, this equipment is being provided by private companies -- at BP's expense. And like other elements of the joint response, decision-making has been complicated because federal officials must consult with the oil giant before signing off on any offer.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/14/politics/washingtonpost/main6581011.shtml



Second, the U.S. administration system is not prepared enough to deal with a disaster of this extent. While decisions need to be taken as quickly as possible and waiting can prove fatal to the world as a whole, the administration is holding up offers of companies and governments wanting to help cause they simply don't know how to decide or the files end up on someone's desk...

"We're clearly behind the curve because BP did not have the game plan to deal with this spill," said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), who visited Louisiana on Friday. "I don't know if the federal government has the capacity it needs at this point."

Anthony H. Cordesman, a national security and energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the administration has been hampered because the spill is "a rare case"

(...)

when a Dutch official was seeking to broker an aid agreement last month, "it was for a long time unclear on where he should go to and who should take the decision."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/14/politics/washingtonpost/main6581011.shtml


Third, because of the US federal government, the state government ànd BP have to agree on what they want to accept and what not. The decision is being postponed to. And obviously priority is given to these companies offering help that are American or friends with BP or having contacts with BP or one of it's governments. Just like there's not enough work for everybody in this case. :-/ No, American companies wants to do it all of their own, because of the money!! No they are sure that they have work for like maybe a decade to come...

A plan by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) to create sand berms to keep oil from reaching the coastline originally came from the marine contractor Van Oord and the research institute Deltares, both in the Netherlands. BP pledged $360 million for the plan, but U.S. dredging companies -- which have less than one-fifth of the capacity of Dutch dredging firms -- have objected to foreign companies' participation.

Garret Graves, who chairs Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, wrote in an e-mail that state officials "have made it clear to our contractors from the beginning that we want to use American dredges to complete this sand berm as quickly as possible . . . Ultimately, any effort to expedite these berms will be fully considered, but we remain committed to our American companies."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/14/politics/washingtonpost/main6581011.shtml

Note that the Belgian companies (Flemish actually so Dutch-speaking too) de Nul and DEME have the best equipment in the world to do this. Material of them is laying unused in Antwerp, Dunkerqe and other places while it can remove the current quantity of oil without using dispersants in 3 to 4months!! It also asked to help making a sand barrier to protect Louisiana's wetlands begin May!! They could do it cheaper then the American companies!! If their offer had not been rejected, Louisiana's wetland may have been saved from the oil disaster!!
De Nul and DEME are currently negotiating, please let them help to clean up and contain the leak!!!

The Belgian dredgers say that the entire operation could have been executed much more rapidly using the sophisticated vessels that they have. Jan De Nul and DEME proposed to BP that their fall pipe vessels be used, which are unique ships equipped with a two kilometre long fall pipe that are normally used to dump rock at great depths when laying pipelines on the seabed. ‘The diameter of the pipe on such a ship is much broader than the funnel BP is now using (my add: it is double in diameter) to suck up the oil,’ says Noel Pille of Jan De Nul. ‘That means we can collect more oil, which can be pumped underwater into an oil tanker. Moreover, at the bottom of the fall pipe there is a type of unmanned submarine, which can perform tasks at great depths. With our assistance the entire process could have been speeded up greatly.’

(...)
construct sand and stone barriers using their giant dredging vessels in order to protect the coastal wetlands from the encroaching oil. 'We could do that in half the time and at a lower price,' says Pille. Both Jan De Nul and DEME also own vessels that can suck up oil slicks at a depth of 500 feet, as well as vessels that can skim oil off the surface.

http://www.mediargus.be/flanderstoday.admin.en/rss/27675886.html?via=rss&language=en

So we have the technology to clean up much more rapidly, it only needs to be used to prevent more harm due to this this terrible disaster!!!




(Notice the boat upper left...)