Applause for Monterey Mills’ oil spill proposal
Have you seen the YouTube video that Janesville’s Monterey Mills made to demonstrate how the wool fabric it manufactures could help clean up the environmental disaster BP is making of the Gulf of Mexico?
If not, check it out here.
Reporter Jim Leute talks to Monterey Mills President Dan Sinykin in a story in today’s Gazette.
The company sent a proposal to BP weeks ago but hasn’t heard back. So it filmed the video and posted it online. The video lacks a filmmaker's polish, but the results are remarkable. The company filled a child’s swimming pool with water, then dumped in a bucket of oil. The fabric sopped up all the oil except for a little film on the pool’s edge and a spot that stuck to the bottom.
Sinykin says Monterey could produce enough of the fabric each day to protect more than 20 miles of beachfront. Of course, no one knows how well it might work in Gulf variables such as water composition and temperature.
The video, however, is drawing positive nationwide publicity for Monterey Mills and, by extension, Janesville. In a community that has generated so much negative news since GM pulled out of town, Monterey Mills earns applause for this nugget of good news. And if BP has a good explanation why this fabric won’t work, I’d love to hear it.
Greg Peck
Jun 26, 2010 at 2:56 a.m.
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This is really just one of HUNDREDS of realistic ideas that have been put out there by private companies, and individual entrepreneurs. Many of which have been shown how they work on U-tube video's. Unfortunately all the ideas go to BP, and or the Feds, and they never hear a word back from them. This whole thing is such a joke. If there was a serious coordinated effort on this spill, ZERO oil would have reached the shore lines.
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The way two rather small catastrophic (this and Katrina) have been botched beyond belief, it really makes you fear that if we ever have a major disaster in this country (9+ magnitude quake, massive volcanic eruption, colossal size meteor/comet strike) we will be so screwed that it won't even be funny.
Jun 25, 2010 at 11:04 a.m.
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The video seems to show them using drain oil from motor vehicles. This is a highly refined and specific product. The Gulf spill is crude oil which has properties very different from motor oil.
Jun 25, 2010 at 9:34 a.m.
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I guess BP is taking their let's-wait-and-see attitude. They should be jumping on this. Last night it was on Channel 3 and it looks pretty promising.
Jun 25, 2010 at 6:45 a.m.
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I would think that if they had a way to wring out the oil after sopping it up, they could also be re-usable. Not to mention a way to contain the spilled oil for some sort of use. Maybe? Just a thought.
Jun 25, 2010 at 1:15 a.m.
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A small round of applause for the workers who kept plugging away at "Monkey Mills" back in the mid-80's when it was a mismanaged dump. If they hadn't stuck with it, there wouldn't have been a facility there today to come up with this useful innovation.
Jun 24, 2010 at 4:55 p.m.
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Thanks, sannio; I tweaked the original post, and it should work now.
Greg Peck
Jun 24, 2010 at 4:11 p.m.
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Wait. Are you saying a private business has come up with a good solution?
Oh heck, that must have been edited. No way can it work that good. Or CAN it?
For some reason your link didn't work so I'll try below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3Bku6uWH...
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