Darryl Carpenter and Otis Goodson of Tallahassee, Florida, have come up with an ingenious new solution to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf by using regular old horse hay.
Carpenter, who is Vice President of CW Roberts Contracting, and Goodson, a sub-contractor and erosion specialist, came up with the idea because they often use grass hay and straw for erosion control within their business operations.
“Otis Goodson uses a lot of hay for erosion control in our business, and we came up with the idea to try and use hay to soak up the oil,” Carpenter says. “He first tried it by putting the hay in a bucket of water with oil,” Carpenter says. “Then, he called me back and said that the hay absorbed it all.”
Carpenter says when his company does road construction, they often have to replant grass along the roadside. After putting grass seed down, they place hay over the top in order to prevent the seed from washing away. Carpenter says the hay actually prevents oil particles in the asphalt from getting into the environment.
About the time that Carpenter and Goodson made their discovery, it was estimated that the oil would reach the Florida coast within 48 hours.
“Basically, we did this experiment for the local authorities,” he says. “We went and saw the sheriff the next morning and he put the video on YouTube. The other idea in the video is with a fiber material. It is made out of polyester fibers. It absorbs oil faster than the hay. It works really well.”
In one of their first demonstrations, Goodson uses Coastal Bermuda and Bahia hay to soak up motor oil. After their video received such popularity on YouTube, to date one of their videos has received over 1,500,000 views, people were amazed that this green, environmentally safe solution could be so effective.
The only question left was if their seemingly, simple process would work on crude oil in the saltwater of the Gulf.
“The first video we did on YouTube, we used motor oil,” he says. “Since then, we have done some demonstrations using crude oil and seawater from the Gulf of Mexico, so we know it works on both. It takes only about two to three minutes and it soaked up all of the oil.”
Another upside to this clever solution is that Carpenter proposes using straw or older leftover hay that is unsuitable to be fed to animals.
“What we’d like to do is not take anything away from the animals,” he says. “We are in the straw season, and it is not a feed hay. You could also use older hay from past years. We would actually take big commercial blowers and blow a thin layer of hay out onto the water. Then, we would come along with skimmers to pick up the hay and put it on a barge in containers. Then, we have a company that can extract the oil from the hay and it could be made into a fuel pellet to be used for energy. We would get a very good benefit out of it.”
Carpenter says he has submitted both ideas to BP through the company’s internet process, but hasn’t received anything but a generic response at this time. However, he has submitted proposals to all of the Florida counties in the Panhandle area in regards to their oil clean-up solution.
“The only agreement we have right now is with Walton County,” he says. “We are doing work for them now in protecting the coastal lakes. We think this is a great idea. It is a natural, all-american product that is readily available.”
Click here to watch the video demonstration on YouTube.
