Giant oil skimmer makes stop in Norfolk on way to Gulf oil cleanup:
- After making a brief stop in Norfolk for refueling, U.S. Coast Guard inspections and an all-out publicity blitz intended to drum up public support, a giant tanker billed as the world's largest oil skimming vessel set sail Friday for the Gulf of Mexico where it hopes to assist in the oil-cleanup effort....
The vessel's billionaire owner, Nobu Su, the CEO of Taiwanese shipping company TMT Group, said the ship would float across the Gulf "like a lawn mower cutting the grass," ingesting up to 500,000 barrels of oil-contaminated water a day.
But a number of hurdles stand in his way. TMT officials said the company does not yet have government approval to assist in the cleanup or a contract with BP to perform the work.
That's part of the reason the ship was tied to pier at the Virginia Port Authority's Norfolk International Terminals Friday morning. TMT and its public-relations agency invited scores of media, elected officials and maritime industry executives to an hour-long presentation about how the ship could provide an immediate boost to clean-up efforts in the Gulf.
TMT also paid to fly in Edward Overton, a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at Louisiana State University, to get a look at the massive skimmer.
Overton blasted BP and the federal government for a lack of effort and coordination in their dual oil-spill response and made a plea to the government to allow the A Whale to join the cleanup operation.
"We need this ship. We need this help," Overton said. "That oil is already contaminating our shoreline. We've got to get the ship out there and see if it works. There's only one way to find out: Get the damn thing in the gulf and we'll see."
To join the fight, the ship also might require separate waivers from the Coast Guard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency....
Coast Guard inspectors toured the ship for about four hours on Thursday to determine the ship's efficacy and whether it was fit to be deployed, said Capt. Matthew Sisson, commanding officer of the Coast Guard's Research and Development arm in New London, Conn.
"We take all offers of alternative technology very seriously," Sisson said. The ship, he said, is "an impressive engineering feat."
He would not offer a timetable for Coast Guard approval of the vessel, but said he will try to "turn around a report … as soon as humanely possible."
In other words, the feds have been, and will be, dicking around for days or even weeks making this ship jump through bureaucratic hoops while more oil spills into the gulf.
