The following article is the third in a series of four that is being published this week. The subject is Jim Cobb and his patented oil spill techniques and equipment and the government's and oil industry's response to it.

It was August 21^st, 2009, that the Timor Sea blowout occurred, and carried on for approximately 74 days before mud could be pumped into the well and the wellbore could be cemented and capped. The first four attempts to plug the well head failed. In that time the spill extended all the way to Indonesia. Jim contacted the Australian government; they replied but showed no interest.

No oil was recovered from the Montara Timor Sea incident. Dispersants were used to sink the oil into the water column. The spill affected the livelihoods of at least 18,000 fishermen and did untold damage to pearl and kelp farmers in the region.

Then, on April 20^th, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon disaster struck. Jim said, “The minute I heard about it, I knew it was going to be the worst.” Jim continued “I knew with the time frame involved with the drilling of a relief well, I could at the very least let the industry “sea trial” my concepts under real conditions. Using my toolbox, I worked night and day and assembled a list of readily available equipment that could be put together and be manned in a relatively short period of time.”

After assembling what he thought was needed, Jim contacted a close friend, Frank Mullen of Raymond James, who had previously worked with spill response plans in Washington state’s Puget Sound. It was Mullen who carried Cobb’s plans to BP in Georgia and Louisiana and hand-delivered the information to their offices. The reply from BP… there wasn’t one.

The Deepwater Horizon spill, or BP Oil Spill, would gush oil from the sea floor for 87 days until it was capped on July 15, 2010. It was declared sealed in September of 2010. But reports continue even now saying that it still is leaking oil.

Once again, the outdated techniques were hauled out to attempt to clean up the 219 million gallon mess. When skimmers, booms and other cleanup efforts failed, the industry turned to burning off the pollution, When that did not give the desired results, the industry again turned to dispersants. The total damage to the environment done by the dispersants is not yet known and probably never will be.

Extensive damage to the environment, marine and wildlife habitats, the fishing and tourist industry, in addition to several different human health problems is directly attributable to the spill and the adverse effects of the various cleanup and dispersal efforts. It may be years before the people of the Gulf region finally understand the full extent. Even this month, July, 2013, fully three years after the event, a 40,000 pound mat of oil was discovered in East Grand Terre, Louisiana. Its discovery prompted the closure of all fisheries in the area.

Jim believes that if his techniques had been called upon and utilized, that at least some of that damage would never have had to occur.

Late in 2010, Jim attended the Presidential Oil Spill Commission meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, bringing with him digital materials laying out his oil spill mitigation process. It was delivered in person to William Riley, former head of EPA under the Bush adminstration at the commission meeting by Kraig Haver. The information delivered to the Presidential Spill Response Commission was the same material that was delivered to BP earlier in the year. The material given, covered different spill scenarios in open ocean, river spills, marsh spills as well as ice mixture spills. It also showed examples of how to contain and store the recovered oil with a list of materials and the construction. Included as well was his issued U.S. Patent that clarified every aspect of the various scenarios and containment such as oil and ice removal complete with details on ice separation. The result of that attempt to bring his solutions to the eye of the government directly involved in finding a way through to the problem of oil spill mitigation was again… no calls and no correspondence.

“With that, it really began to sink in, even the commission, who shared common ground with the industry, showed zero interest in protecting America’ environment or the American people and their jobs, or creating new jobs in the form of improvement of oil spill mitigation techniques,” Jim related.

James Cobb is a life-long Alaskan and Bering Sea Yupik Eskimo who has fished in the Alaska fishing industry his entire life. He is also the owner of Retriever Environmental, a company dedicated to oil spill mitigation. He can be reached by phone at (907) 299-4767 or by email at retriever.environmental@gmail.com. The Alaska Native News gives full permission to re-post or re-print this article.

Next: Still Waiting for Someone to Hear

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