Admiral: Some oil is being captured but fishing boats are new line ...
by Mary Ellen Klas
As tar balls and oil mats started washing up on Pensacola Beach early Friday, U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen announced the first breakthrough of good news: the containment cap over the gusher has started to capture flow at a rate estimated at 1,600 barrels a day.
He said that while it is not complete and those numbers are estimates, the method is having the effect of sucking up some of the oil and bringing it into containment vessels "like taking your finger off a straw.’’
Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast Guard has enlisted 928 charter boats, fishing boats and other "vessels of opportunity" to be deployed in Florida waters to be used for laying boom and skimming oil before it reaches shore. He called the effort their major emphasis that and "a huge force multiplier." The Coast Guard is also preparing vacuum trucks to collect oil before it goes into Escambia Bay.
In an interview with the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times, Allen said that skimmers remain the most effective way to combat oil reaching the shores. But the Coast Guard must constantly juggle which parts of the 1,300 miles of coast will see the most benefit and acknowledged that there may be some turf wars over deployment of resources between the coastal states.
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