Hi Larry,
A good article and even better, your observations! In order to get attention
in this "new world" may be the wording of your complaint needs to be
"updated"!

Suggestion:
When you call in to 911 use the phrase;
" May be started by a " terrorist" or is it a "terrorist action/plot".

In stead of the fire dept. may be they'll send the Homeland Security Rep.
;-))
If the story was not so tragic, it might be comical in its own way ;-)
Taxes at work.
--
c ya Wim
www.cruising.ca/thousand/f-index.html


"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
: I came home, yesterday, around noonish. I live on the waterfront of
: the Ashley River in Charleston, SC, about 9.5 miles up from the
: harbor. The Ashley River, combined with the Cooper River, join
: together in downtown Charleston to form the Atlantic Ocean.
:
: I noticed a strong smell of diesel fuel in the air, so proceeded to
: check out my diesel cars and truck for a leak. I found nothing. A
: neighbor came over to see what I was doing and said he knew where the
: smell was coming from, the river. I went down to the waterfront to
: find a fairly big oil slick covered the water out front. I called 911
: to report it, expecting a hazmat response team to find the leak and
: stop it from polluting the river. I was wrong, not for reporting it,
: but for expecting some government bureaucrats to DO something to stop
: it.
:
: The 911 operator triggered a fire truck pumper from our local city
: fire station with three firemen whos lunch was interrupted. Two of
: them were all dressed up to fight a fire, so was the truck. They
: agreed there was an oil spill in the water and told their dispatcher
: so. They called the Coast Guard and SC Department of Health and
: Environmental Control (DHEC). Our fire department has no boat or, it
: seems, hazmat team equipped for oil spills. They seemed very
: reluctant to trespass on anyone's property for fear of the lawyers, so
: the local chief arrived. One neighbor has a fuel oil tank on a small
: hill overlooking the river, but that seemed secure when the chief
: walked over to take a look.
:
: A neighbor, hearing the fire truck ruckus, walked out on his dock and
: also noticed the oil so got in his boat to ride around an look upriver
: as the tide was going out. He offered the firemen a ride with him,
: but they declined as they are not allowed to ride with mere mortals in
: private boats, again for fear of being sued, I suppose.
:
: I expected the Coast Guard to send a hazmat team in one of their fast
: motor lifeboats or rib boats to be haulin' ass upriver. This was
: another hope dashed, when two sailors, a politically-correct team of
: one male and one asian female, arrived by car from downtown. These
: were the investigators for the legal team, whos job it is to place
: blame and see how big a fine they can impose on any violators dumping
: oil into the waterways. They didn't have any hazmat materials to stop
: the oil leak if we found it, only a little plastic sieve in a plastic
: ring and a plastic oil collection bottle to gather evidence to use at
: the poor *******s trial before sentencing. It's now over an hour
: since my report. Noone, on scene, is capable of stopping an oil leak
: or soaking up oil leaking from even a canoe, much less an oil tanker.
: Not a single oil soaking pad has been exposed to the hazard.
:
: A DHEC guy arrived who talked to the sailors and firemen. A decision
: was made that the sailors were going to handle the investigation to
: get the others off the hook. Hands were shaken and the State of South
: Carolina's DHEC left without getting his hands oily. The male sailor
: took a water sample and sealed the jar while the female sailor took
: pictures on her top-of-the-line Sony Mavica SLR still camera to show
: her boss the sailor got his shoes muddy taking the sample. His shoes
: were the only oil casualty, other than the river and its inhabitants,
: in this sordid affair.
:
: Downriver from here, there is only one diesel-powered boat within 5
: miles of waterfront. It's an aging sport fisherman, that has been
: perched over the river on its electric lift for as long as any of us
: can remember. Its owner has long since abandoned deep sea fishing, or
: even cruising it up and down the river, because he's quite old and
: goes out of state a lot, leaving the once-nice boat to sit and rot in
: the hot SC sunshine, abandoned.
:
: The male sailor knows the boat. He has investigated other complaints
: of oil leakage from it many months past from other neighbors on the
: downriver side of it. He said CG had inspected its overboard
: discharge ports and found diesel fuel leaking out of it, long ago.
: The owner's son was notified because the owner was out-of-town making
: another million, I suppose, and the son and a mechanic were supposed
: to "take a look" for oil leaks in the fiberglass hull's interior. Of
: course, it seems no follow-up inspection was done to insure the
: problem was actually found and corrected.....only that all the
: required paperwork and reports were neatly typed without errors and
: filed away with the millions of other reports in some haze grey
: cabinets for future court actions. The on-scene sailors, Second Class
: Petty Officers, USCG, were going to go look, again, at the boat to see
: if that was the source of the oil slick. Noone was in a hurry to stop
: it.
:
: The North Charleston Fire Chief, alerted to the ruckus on the
: waterfront, showed up to confer with the on-scene local chief to make
: sure the department was following the book. Firemen who had turned
: the truck around to go finish lunch decided to back the truck back
: down our dead-end street for the Chief. Lunch was gonna be later then
: planned. Some firemen started in on the now-cold greasy fried
: chicken. I hoped none of it got into the river to make the oil slick
: bigger.
:
: The "chief's conference" was short as government-sponsored conferences
: go and both chief's determined they were off the hook for any cleanup,
: leaving all responsibilities to the politically-correct sailors to
: handle. The firemen all left as they had come, ready to fight that
: dumpster fire at a moment's notice. God bless 'em. We should buy 'em
: a boat and show 'em how to use it....maybe some oil pads and a little
: pump or at least some plastic sheets.
:
: The party broke up soon after the sailors headed over towards Lamb's
: Road to look at the diesel boat.....No hurry. They didn't have the
: equipment to stop the boat from leaking, anyway, in their nice car.
: You'd have to have a BOAT to go under the boat on the lift to put some
: plastic under it to catch any diesel oil leaking out of it. Well,
: Duhhhh......
:
: I suppose, by now, the son has been notified, the reports are being
: neatly typed by the hazmat typing team and all is well, again, on the
: Ashley River.....still coated with diesel fuel. The tide'll have to
: take care of the cleanup. If you live downriver, keep a sharp eye out
: and jack up the boat on your lift another foot.
:
: Thanks.
:
: