Sponsor of the Coastal Cleanup
This morning we walked our beach, collecting trash, for the 23rd Annual Alabama Coastal Cleanup.
We met at the Fort Morgan Volunteer Fire Department for our assignments, tee-shirts, and trash bags. Cheryl Gilges, our perennially organized “Organizer” also provided us with gloves and red flags this year. She explained we were asked to help the persistently disorganized BP crews by marking any new oil deposits with the little red flags so they could see them as they raced by us on their four-wheelers. Really…..
Unfortunately, the BP crews have returned after an absence of almost 2 weeks… evidently we celebrated their departure too early. The tar balls on the beach are generally rolling in the surf now and out of the reach of the green-shirted ‘workers’ in tents on the beach, so we’re not really sure why they are back.
A news story last week reported a new attack by concerned BPers on tar balls buried deep in the sand, and the video showed an auger drilling 3 feet into a dune (in Kentucky we called it a ‘post hole digger’ and it is NOT very effective in the sand).
And my neighbor and I did watch as 4 men got out of a 4-wheeler, dug a little hole and took a picture today. So perhaps BP is now planning to make up for their disorganized ‘cleanup’ operation that allowed 3 feet of sand to be deposited on the oil that washed in months ago by removing the 3 feet of sand along the Fort Morgan peninsula?
I’m just guessing, but that might not be very popular here in hurricane season when we normally bring sand in to fortify the dunes and ‘renourish’ the beaches. But this kind of ‘organization’ would be in keeping with the level of intelligent planning we’ve witnessed here from Clean Harbors, Crowder, etc. over the summer.
Coastal Cleanup
For example, after the first storm this summer BP discovered the ‘locals’ were right, oil boom was designed for calm water, not the waves of the gulf. The thousands of miles of boom they were bragging about on TV was not only useless, but actually detrimental to wildlife as it washed up on the shore. They had to go back and pick it all up.
So the BP crews drove right past the bag of 50 ft of Oil Snare Pompoms that washed up on Surfside this summer, and I pulled it out of the water and dragged it home.
AbsorbentsOnline.com describes the boom as :
floating plastic pompoms
Oil Absorbent Pom Poms – Oil Snares
Description: Made with thousands of thin strands of polypropylene joined together to create this high-surface area absorbent. 30 units absorb approximately 11.6 gallons.
Uses: Use on water to absorb hydrocarbons. Repels water so the pompoms will float Additional product information on order page.
CALL FOR PRICING 800-869-9633
But after a couple of months in the gulf it is just millions of small plastic strands that look eerily like fishing lures floating on the water… I’m sure they are being swallowed every day by the Cobia, Redfish & Drum driven inshore by the oxygen-depleted water in the gulf.
I pick them up every morning, and today we collected several hundred ‘thin strands of polypropylene’ in hopes of protecting our fish.
And since my 50-ft strand of cheery pompoms is green & white and match my house, I am planning to string them with lights and hang them from my deck at Christmas… far from the waves and surf that turn them into just another BP environmental disaster and more trash on the beach.
Christmas boom
Rah! Rah! Rah! Cheers to you, BP!
