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JUNE 2: Six weeks in, BP and the federal government have started accepting some international help in cleaning up the oil leak. Sophisticated skimmers from the Netherlands are set to be at work in the Gulf. What took so long?


Contract workers from BP use skimmers to clean oil from a marsh near Pass a Loutre near Venice, La. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

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Gulf oil skimmers can get up to $3000 a day from BP

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/08/95514/gul-oil-skimmers-can-get-u
p-to.html#ixzz0qkM1X24A

BP's Vessel of Opportunity program pays some boat owners as much as $3,000 a day.

The owners of boats would be paid according to the size of the boat, with 65 feet and longer getting the highest pay at $3,000 per day. Boats between 45 and 65 feet would net $2,000 per day for the owners, while those between 30 and 45 feet would be given $1,500 per day. Those under 30 feet would get $1,200 per day. Any equipment required by BP will be fully reimbursed, plus an extra 10 percent of the cost.

The crew members of the boats would be paid $200 each per eight-hour day, but the meals are to be provided by the vessel owner.

Officials said only those who have completed four hours of required training, passed a U.S. Coast Guard dock side inspection and meet the crew requirements would be considered for the program. Vessels also must be certified as safe.

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Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
signing off

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Three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help.

It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.

Now, almost seven weeks later, as the oil spewing from the battered well spreads across the Gulf and soils pristine beaches and coastline, BP and our government have reconsidered.

U.S. ships are being outfitted this week with four pairs of the skimming booms airlifted from the Netherlands and should be deployed within days. Each pair can process 5 million gallons of water a day, removing 20,000 tons of oil and sludge.

At that rate, how much more oil could have been removed from the Gulf during the past month?

The uncoordinated response to an offer of assistance has become characteristic of this disaster’s response. Too often, BP and the government don’t seem to know what the other is doing, and the response has seemed too slow and too confused.

BP has been inundated with well-intentioned cleanup suggestions, but the Dutch offer was different. It came through official channels, from a government offering to share its demonstrated expertise.

Many in the U.S., including the president, have expressed frustration with the handling of the cleanup. In the Netherlands, the response would have been different, Visser said.

There, the government owns the cleanup equipment, including the skimmers now being deployed in the Gulf.

“If there’s a spill in the Netherlands, we give the oil companies 12 hours to react,” he said.

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Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
signing off