Oil Spill - what if?

[hooligal]

Hiya all! I'm in San Francisco for a bit. Watching this oil spill unfold sucks. I am quite sad that voulenteers are not allowed to help. Turns out we must be pre-trained for at least 40 hours before we're allowed to even pick oil up off a beach, much less help the wildlife! grrrr!

Is there an organization on the BI that oversees oil spill control? I want to get trained, in case (Pele forbid), we have a spill in HI. I don't want to feel this frustrated and helpless a second time





Edited by - hooligal on 11/11/2007 17:46:14

[mgeary]

Just googled around a little, the EPA is the responsible government agency for spills in inland waters (probably not Hawaii), and the U.S. Coast Guard is the lead governmental agency for coastal waters.

http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/response.htm

This had some references to rescuing wildlife:

http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/rescue.htm

Although, here's something I hadn't thought about: as sick as the oil makes the birds and wildlife, it also affect the volunteers in the same way:

http://www.theolivepress.es/2007/06/21/t...-problems/

How do I know?

[Carey]

The mainland aquarium I used to volunteer with had an OSHA program:
http://www.osha.gov/Publications/3172/3172.html

[mella l]

Do oil tankers deliver to the Big Island? If so where do they dock? Have there been previous oil spills in Hawaii of magnitude?

Thanks for any information.

mella l

[hooligal]

Hiya Mella, I was wondering the same thing. I don't think we have refineries here, so no crude tankers. But in the SF Bay case, it was a container ship that spilled, and we get plenty of container ships I didn't realize container ships used such nasty, gloppy fuel

I googled for Hawaii oil spills, but got bunk results.

[emorata]

the good thing was there was alot of mass conversion on this recently and people just went to the beach, put on their own PPE outfits and gloves and picked up the oil slick or used sponges/absorbent materials regardless of the useless rangers trying to stop the progress (hard to detract or arrest a mass of people trying to do what no-one is really doing at this point) sad that agencies and government were stifled to inaction during this timeframe.

[Carey]

Mella, yes, there are refineries in Hawaii, both Chevron & Tesoro on Oahu (Hondo had a refinery until the 90's in Hilo...): http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/new-fuel...-riley.pdf
heavy oils are delivered to Hilo for electrical generation. The main port for petroleum products in Hawaii county is Hilo (hence the big oil storage area by the port), also there is a terminal port at Kawaihae.
good source for response links is:
http://www.cleanislands.com/links.html
and more island specific training info (just no dates):
http://www.cleanislands.com/training/index.html
PS There have been numberous crude & lighter oil spills in Hawaii, infact, last winter there was a fuel spill within the NW Hawaiian Islands Marine Sactuary by a Japanese fishing vessel, within the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge! (the fuel tanks had the potential to spill over 35,000 gallons, but 'only' a tenth leaked....creating years of damage to one of our most fragile areas.)

Edited by - carey on 11/12/2007 11:49:41

Edited by - carey on 11/12/2007 12:22:47

[carmel123]

Well, why dont you lefty lonies get together and send some kitty litter to SF to take care of the spill.

[Rob Tucker]

Fireant, Are you contributing to this topic or do you just have something meaningless to say?

Punaweb moderator

[hooligal]

Carey, thanks for the info! Is anyone else interested if I find out training dates?