World's Only Full-Scale Oil Spill Test Tank Springs a Leak

[ensho]

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/oil-spill-test-tank-Menendez-Salazar


There's just one facility in the world where scientists and emergency responders can run full-scale oil spill response tests and research. It's housed at US Naval Weapons Station Earle in Leonardo, New Jersey. But when Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) tried to arrange a visit to the facility earlier this week, he learned that the facility is presently inoperable. Why? The tank researchers use to simulate spills has sprung a leak.

The Oil and Hazardous Materials Simulated Environmental Test Tank (OHMSETT) is owned by the Minerals Management Service (recently renamed the "Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement"). The wave pool there, which is used to test oil spill response technologies and techniques, was closed last month "because of multiple leaks" and is expected to remain out of commission until sometime in July.

Menendez, a major opponent of offshore drilling, says the situation demonstrates just how unprepared the federal government is to handle an oil disaster like the one in the Gulf. "I believe that the fact that this facility is inoperable during the nation’s largest oil spill is indicative of a complacency and lack of investment in oil spill response technologies," he wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday. "The industry and even the government has substantially invested in new technologies to drill in deeper water and deeper into the Earth, but little has been invested in safety or oil spill response and clean-up."

-snip-

"The need for the MMS reform could not be clearer when the agency charged with preventing Big Oil from spilling into our waters cannot keep water in its own testing tanks," Menendez tells Mother Jones.

Seems like the hole in the bottom of the Gulf isn't the only one we should be worrying about.
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seems like our govt. depts. should reread the books and articles on 'efficiency'.

efficiency saves time and money and in many cases, lives.

[aquart]

1. Sigh.

[cliffordu]

2. Where's that double facepalm photo????

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. the hole in their heads is also worrisome.

Krill, Baba, Krill.
Or for Bible Spice, Shrill, Baby, Shrill.