Skimmers Move at Slow Pace Taking Oil from Gulf

(CBS)  In the Gulf of Mexico, the massive effort to contain the oil spill continued, including thousands of ships skimming oil from the water.

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Six miles off Florida's shore a Coast Guard ship has hit a field of oil. Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Swanson and his crew are new to this, based in the much colder northeast and now cleaning the sea in 100-degree heat, CBS News Correspondent Kelly Cobiella.

"The biggest challenge, really, is finding and locating these ribbons of oil," said Swanson. "They're very difficult to see."

And they're almost as tough to catch, made up of thousands of hamburger-sized pieces and moving with the current.

It is slow work, moving at about 2 miles per hour. Any faster and the oil sloshes over the boom.

Once a line of boom is full of oil, Coast Guard sailors turn on the pump moving it through a hose, onto the ship and into holding tanks.

Swanson's ship collected nearly 12,000 gallons of oil in three days, a small dent in a massive spill. Gerry Matherne, a ship captain turned BP contractor, thinks he's found a way to pick up the pace.

As he watched skimming boats struggle to keep up with the oil, he dreamt up a cage with a lining inside. It's like a trash bag, "a massive trash bag with a filtration system," as Matherne describes it.

Matherne built a prototype from PVC pipe and door screens he bought at a hardware store. On its first run, Matherne's invention picked up one ton of weathered oil in less than two hours. Unlike boom, it can skim in high seas.

"I had to find a solution, and we found one of the solutions, and we're constantly looking for more," Matherne said.

Matherne's invention is now in mass production and could be on more skimming boats as soon as next week.

[oilpitcleaner]

do math gentlemen . . . we are not going to skid past the release anytime soon . . . however . . .

2 tankers, 20 boats with small to medium cranes . . . and a little hardware from California . . . we can keep up with or surpass the well head output.

415 410 6265

[jhotts]

How does the reported 12,000 gallons collected in 3 days compare to the 1 ton, Gerry Matherne, collected in 2 hours?

[govmess]

Hey Mr. President, wake up....you and your administration are waging a huge bet that this relief valve will work....if you truly are prepared for the worst scenario, what are your plans if this fails and worse yet results in a second leak. Now is the time for your "brilliant" staff to be putting action plans in place for the worst possilbe scenario.

[JohnDonovan]

"Matherne built a prototype from PVC pipe and door screens he bought at a hardware store ... and is now in mass production." Now that's what makes America great - inventiveness. How about this? Offer $50 per gallon for any cleaned up crude from the Gulf and we'd have another "gold rush" with entrepreneurs hunting the stuff and rendering it close to extinction like the American buffalo(bison). Since BP has already spent more than $100 per gallon leaked (not even yet cleaned up), this bounty would be a bargain.

[notparicular]

One more. Will there be a way to tag these rescued water soaked oil blobs so we know why all of a sudden our cars start sputtering?

[notparicular]

What a garage operation! They are going to catch one hamburger size blob at a time in the sea, and when they find it floating! There goes one! Man, looks like a fine summer job for the kids. All you do is produce a million of such boogy-woogy catchers, and hire a million school kids. At the end of summer they are sure to trap at least a 100,000 gallons. The rest can be eaten by the fish. BP, hats off to your British technology. Sell that design to the Chinese, they can make millions of them, and sell them to the Japanese on their next earthquake to catch something. Man I am on a roll.

[RobAla]

Three days after the spill, the Dutch government offered to help clean up with a vessel that captives huge amounts of oil. The President said "No". I would like to hear him explain this in a national televised talk.

[wtcmedicdidntforget]

How about those oil booms in maine he turned down?

[daffy64]

What are you, a socialist? Why would you accept help from a socialist country like Holland?