Friday 14 October 2011

More updates from Papamoa, from our correspondent Jonathan Livingston

Jonathan Livingston reports from his eyrie above Papamoa Beach.

UPDATE, 9:19am, 14 October

A report on Newstalk ZB just moments ago appeared to claim that the beaches at Papamoa are now clean due to the manual clean-up. Bravo, well done boys, etc.

I observed the beach near me from one day to the next, where no manual cleaning had been conducted, and it too had been mostly cleared of oil globules during the tidal cycle.

The notion that the only way the oil can go is to be manually removed by humans reminds me of the absurd notion being (successfully) promulgated by the greenies that trees must be planted by humans before they can grow.

The blobs of oil will break down naturally, the same way each grain of sand came from a larger rock, and end up constituting an even lesser proportion in parts per million in the sea water than , say, radioactive uranium.

UPDATE, 7:18pm, 13 October:

I went all down the beach today. SO FAR it is pretty minimal, at the Mount you wouldn't know anything had happened, except from a few beached containers (being guarded), and one little enclave of oil eddying around near the Papamoa Surf Club. It doesn't extend far in either direction (so far), and could be cleaned up by a front end loader with a skilled operator in a few hours. Still haven't figured why it is being done by hand!

Oh, and that little micro-pocket of oil is where all the media shots are being taken of course.

My theory was that this stuff will ultimately be washed away and go somewhere else, like North Korea for example. Westerlies are  now coming in over the next couple of days, so may have to make that Venezuela, not North Korea…

6 comments:

Falafulu Fisi said...

Have you seen anyone drinking Waikato beers there at Papamoa with Stephen Donald?

Peter Cresswell said...

No, but there are strong rumours the English rugby team was seen carousing on the Rena with Speights, jet skis, sundry royals and several dozen ex-girlfriends.

V said...

I'm not an expert on the subject I must admit, but I think some reasons for not using heavy machinery at least at this stage are.

a)to try and minimise the volume of material needing to be disposed of. If the slick isn't too heavy probably not worth using large machinery.

b)In sensitive ecosystems it may not be appropriate to use such large equipment. I wouldn't want my home driven over by a huge excavator either.

Happy to be corrected on these points.

Michael Fasher said...

I was thinking at work today why they don't use heavy machinery to clean it up, a CAT tipper truck following a tracked digger problem solved.
The other thing that comes to mind is the over use of the word disaster, when two 747s collide in the Canary Islands killing 570 people in a fiery death thats a disaster when a cargo ship runs aground spilling some oil and killing some sea birds Im not sure that does the word justice.

Anonymous said...

6000L of sunlight dishwashing liquid diluted and sprayed liberally off the back of a 4wd motor bike and 2 tidal cycles

Berend de Boer said...

I'm driving down the Bay of Plenty on Thursday, I'll do some citizen journalism and upload pictures to Facebook.