Even if  BP managed to stop the Gulf of Mexico Oil gusher today, there is the formidable toxic spill of almost unimaginable amounts of  of oil mixing in the Gulf waters, traveling upon the currents, infiltrating all phases of the food chain and impacting marine life and shores that line the Gulf.  

While focus has been on stopping the source, the US Coast Guard ship The Walnut left Honolulu on Sunday to go and lend a hand with equipment and expertise designed to clean up oil spills using skimmers and boomers.

“The Walnut is 225-feet long, has a crew of about 50 people, and boasts state-of-the-art communications equipment and oil skimming capabilities,” reports Minna Sugimoto for Hawaii News Now. “Designed after the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989, the Walnut comes equipped with a boom and pump oil collection system.”

“Protecting our natural resources is one of the Coast Guard's many missions," said Eric Roberts, the marine protected species program manager for the 14th  Coast Guard District, headquartered in Honolulu.

“America's marine waters and their ecosystems are vital to the health, well-being and economy of the nation. For this reason, the Coast Guard's role in carrying out the nation's mandates to protect our marine environment is of vital importance.”

While this looks like a good effort, a little research shows this ship to have been built in 1939. No doubt she's  been updated a bit since its original launch, even coming out of retirement  (officially decommissioned to Honduras in 1982) to clean trash and tend bouys along the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, but hopefully this isn't the military's finest reponse to a serious problem still growing in the gulf region now nicknamed "oilmaggaden"

So far BP's solution has been to mix a toxic dispersant directly into the Gulf waters. How toxic? Well, it has been banned for use in the UK waters for the past ten years.

Houstin's Indy media reports: "If Americans want to visualize victory over the oil spill invasion that threatens our beloved Gulf of Mexico, then we should call for a federalized war of skimmers and booms.

American's want solutions to the problem, and a call to action has been sent by various organizations, citizens, fishermen and politicians.

"We should not be timid about it. We should visualize a series of booms in concentric rings that contain the spill, with skimmers at work within each ring, sucking up the oil. Industry websites claim that extracted oil can then be mixed with chemicals and reused for fuel."

In addition, help could come in the form of some of the global fleet of oil supertankers “that come in empty, with the huge valves and huge pumps that they have to suck the oil off the surface of the sea so it stops drifting into the wetlands”, says former president of Shell Oil John Hofmeister in a recent interview with the BBC.

As part of this scenerio to be successful to protecting the web of life in the Gulf of Mexico from both biological and chemical threats, the use of toxic chemical dispersants must be stopped.

A piece of this vision moved into action Sunday May 30 when the  Coast Guard Cutter Walnut, left Hawaii for her 6,000-mile journey to the Gulf on what is expected to be a four-twelve month deployment to help with the massive oil spill cleanup from the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded on April 20.

"The crew of the Walnut is ready and willing to utilize our oil spill equipment and training to assist the residents of the Gulf Coast in this multiagency response," said Lt. Andrea Holt, the Walnut's executive officer. "Even though we will be deploying more than 5,000 miles from our home port in Honolulu, the crew is ready to meet this challenge."

In addition to its oil-skimming equipment, the 225-foot buoy tender is equipped with satellite, radio and communications equipment that will allow it to direct recovery vessels working with them.

"The skimmer sucks the oil in and pumps it into a bladder," says Jeffrey Randall, U.S. Coast Guard commanding officer. "That bladder is then filled up, transferred to another vessel that takes it away."

“Coast Guard officials say the crew goes through annual spill response training, but this will be the first time it'll actually put oil in the equipment,” Sugimoto reports.

The US military has been called into assistance of the oil spill control and cleanup since  April 29 the Los Angeles Times was reporting the Navy’s mobilization of booms and skimmers and the “opening (of) two of its bases in Mississippi and Florida as staging areas.” WLOX- Biloxi reporter Steve Phillips filed an eyewitness account of the activity from the Gulfport Seabee base.

 Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy is commander of the US Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command's (NAVSEA) which includes the Supervisor of Salvage and Diving (SUPSALV). Within these commands we find initial offerings of equipment, expertise, and training that will be required to defend the Gulf of Mexico against the oil spill invasion.

"A team of NAVSEA professionals are working around the clock to protect the sensitive coast lined with oil booms and perform open-ocean skimming at the source,” says Vice Adm. McCoy at a web page posted by the Naval News Service (NNS).

“NAVSEA's Chief Engineer for Underwater Salvage (Capt. Patrick Keenan) has been an integral member of BP's Engineering Command Cell that has assembled the best and brightest minds from around the world to try to stop the leak," said Vice Adm. McCoy.

"With a single phone call from the U.S. Coast Guard, 66,000 feet of open ocean boom and nine self-contained skimming systems, and the professionals to install and operate them, were dispatched (representing the initial shipment). That's your Navy -- a 24-hour Navy, incredibly ready and trained to respond to a wide variety of national taskings," boasts Vice Adm. McCoy.

While the Coast Guard and Navy probably do not have enough booms and skimmers on hand to supply the war for the salvation of the Gulf Coast, they do appear to have sufficient knowledge to gather and organize the inventories and people needed. Surely there are enough booms and skimmers in the world that can be air-transported quickly and organized effectively.

Meanwhile, activists and biologists are converging on a consensus that toxic dispersants must be stopped. The use of the dispersant CODETEXT has been highly disputed, and it is not allowed in British waters. “Imagine Agent Orange in the water. Thousands of people are already sick, with millions more to come.”

David Hollander, a University of South Florida oceanographer, raised troubling questions about whether they would "cascade up the food web."

The threat is that they will poison plankton and fish larvae before making their way into animals higher up the food chain, Hollander said.

INVISIBLE THREAT

The underwater contaminants are particularly "insidious" because they are invisible, Hollander said, adding that they were suspended in what looked like normal seawater.

The a=application of the dispersants  extracted itself away from the crude and is now incorporated into the waters.

"We think there could be both short-term and long-term implications ...

“The use of dispersants is a crime on top of a crime, sanctioned by a federal agency, Lisa Jackson, and the EPA,” writes Elizabeth Cook at New Orleans IndyMedia.“It is the potential destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, its sea creatures, and the people who depend on this ecosystem for a living.“

“Diluting the evidence, this (dispersant) solution was designed only for public relations, even as it made the situation much worse,” argues Linh Dinh at CounterPunch. The two types of dispersants BP is spraying in the Gulf of Mexico are banned for use on oil spills in the U.K. As EPA-approved products, BP has been using them in greater quantities than dispersants have ever been used in the history of U.S. oil spills.

Toxic Dispersement Chemicals Used in Oil Spill

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) directed BP to stop using Corexit 9500A and 9527A, the chemicals BP has been using to disperse the oil slick. According to the EPA, this is due to the unprecedented amounts of these chemicals being used, and the unknown result of this quantity of chemical. Corexit 9500A should not come in contact with the skin or eyes, and the vapors of 9527A should be avoided.

Risks of Oil Clean-up Chemicals

Volunteers working to help with the oil spill cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico are at risk, due to the 800,000 gallons of toxic chemicals that have already been applied to the oil spill. The effects of this amount of dispersement chemicals on the wildlife is also unknown. At this point, the question of the day is... Is the cure worse than the disease?

When on Sunday’s “State of the Nation” program, CNN’s Candy Crowley asked Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen to describe the military response to the Gulf oil spill, “a support role” that simply responded to BP requests and the technical lead for this in our country really is the industry.”

While it may be true that the deep-water attempt to stop the oil spill belongs primarily to industry engineers, it is clearly time to pull all the stops to contain and mitigate the immense damage that has been inflicted on the region by people whose interests are not limited by the profit of shareholders and upholding corporate imagery". People have to remember that BP made over 5 BILLION dollars in profit in the first quarter of 2010.  Are we doing everything possible to protect an irreplacebable eco system of immeasurable value?  Hawaii is sending a coast guard ship and crew that will arrive in 3 months, people want to know what is being done NOW.

The military is