When he’s not producing, directing, writing and starring in movies about Wolves, and when he’s not dating Elle MacPherson, not singing in his rock/country band, or running his casino Kevin Costner is an avid environmentalist, fisherman, and greentech entrepreneur.
While making Waterworld in 1995, Costner was troubled by oil spills like the Exxon Valdez and started developing a system to cruise the surface of the sea and clean oily water. His business partner, John Houghtaling, says:
“The machines are essentially like big vacuum cleaners, which sit on barges and suck up oily water and spin it around at high speed,” Houghtaling said. “On one side, it spits out pure oil, which can be recovered. The other side spits out 99% pure water” [Los Angeles Times].
BP and the U.S. Coast Guard plan to test six of the massive devices next week.
BP now reports they are siphoning 210,000 gallons of oil per day. But that’s not ALL the oil coming out of the leak. Last week they were estimating the leak was spewing 210,000 gallons a day…no it looks like twice that.
Using the following widget, let’s say BP is harvesting half of the oil using the siphon tube. That would mean there was at least 420,000 gallons per day is leaking from the pipe — 12.5 million gallons total so far. We’re beyond the Exxon Valdez at this point.
Exposure to pesticides used on common kid-friendly foods — including frozen blueberries, fresh strawberries and celery — appears to boost the chances that children will be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, new research shows.
Youngsters with high levels of pesticide residue in their urine, particularly from widely used types of insecticide such as malathion, were more likely to have ADHD, the behavior disorder that often disrupts school and social life, scientists in the United States and Canada found.
According to this document released by THE TIMES-PICAYUNE, it appears that the cement that Haliburton had finished pouring just 20 hours earlier failed. I guess it was only a matter of time before Dick Cheney‘s name came up in this somewhere. Click on the image below to open the full PDF version.
The Oil Pollution Act (OPA) was signed into law in August 1990, largely in response to rising public concern following the Exxon Valdez incident.
The OPA created the national Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is available to provide up to one billion dollars per spill incident.
Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the owner or operator of a facility from which oil is discharged (also known as the responsible Party) is liable for the costs associated with the containment or cleanup of the spill and any damages resulting from the spill. The EPA’s first priority is to ensure that responsible parties pay to clean up their own oil releases. However, when the responsible party is unknown or refuses to pay, funds from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund can be used to cover removal costs or damages resulting from discharges of oil.
The primary source of revenue for the fund is a five-cents per barrel fee on imported and domestic oil.
In addition, the OPA provided new requirements for contingency planning both by government and industry. The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP) has been expanded in a three-tiered approach: the Federal government is required to direct all public and private response efforts for certain types of spill events; Area Committees — composed of federal, state, and local government officials — must develop detailed, location-specific Area Contingency Plans; and owners or operators of vessels and certain facilities that pose a serious threat to the environment must prepare their own Facility Response Plans.
Sunday, May 23
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