July 16, 2010
Day 88
—
A Whale is a big fail.
(Patrick Semansky/AP)
After a 24 hour test period, only a “negligible” amount of oil was recovered and “limited oil beyond a sheen” was found in A Whale’s tanks.
Whereas, during the same time period, 590 skimmers were able to remove more than 25.5K barrels of oil water, conduct 26 controlled burns, and recover 12.8k barrels at the source.
590 skippers and crew to 1.
On-Scene Coordinator ADMIRAL PAUL ZUKUNFT:
While its stature is impressive, ‘A Whale’ is not ideally suited to the needs of this response. We appreciate the ingenuity of the TMT team to try to make this innovative system work under these unique conditions. This is the largest oil spill response in our nation’s history and we will continue to attack the oil as far offshore as possible with our fleet of hundreds of skimmers, controlled burns, and effective use of dispersant
To date:
- More than 6,800 vessels involved in cleanup
- Including 593 skimmers
- 33M gallons of oil water recovered + 387 controlled burns = 11M gallons recovered from the surface
And yet no one knows the effect the massive amounts of methane gas (1M times normal) and the over 1M gallons of dispersants will have. Forever.
