The question after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was not if another catastrophic spill would hit the United States, but when.
Now we know. Unless BP's mile-deep gusher can be capped or shut off, it may exceed in volume and damage the 11 million gallon spill that occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound. Estimates are that 1.5 million gallons have already spewed out and it seems to be getting worse, not better.
As an environmental reporter for the Seattle Times, I was one of the first on the scene of the Exxon spill and later shared a Pulitzer for its coverage. Twenty-one years later, neither I nor the oil industry have an answer for what to do now.
Corralling an oil spill is like putting fog in a bag.
Based on Alaska's experience, what might we expect in the Gulf as the oil platform disaster worsens?
First, BP, like Exxon, will be properly contrite, determined, and will promise to make restitution. None of this will matter. Exxon said the same things, probably caused as much damage as it prevented in its power-washing of beaches, and spent two decades beating down $5 billion in civil damages for those harmed by its spill to a little more than 10 percent of that. Watch what they do, not what they say.
Second, cleaning up oil once it escapes its confinement remains an almost impossible task. The technology was not very effective in Alaska, and so far it does not seem very effective in the Gulf. In Alaska, the oil industry tried chemical dispersants such as are being used in the Gulf, booms, burning, hot-water pressure washing of beaches, bio-remediation by culturing bacteria to eat oil, and even wiping rocks with rags. None worked very well. After humans quit, winter storms finally broke up and eroded the surface oil, while subsurface oil still lingers.
Once wind pushes the oil into mangroves and estuaries, forget about it. The damage is hard to imagine until you see it. But to get an idea, dump a quart of dirty motor oil on your driveway and try to clean it up.
There will be immediate photogenic bird kills, but then a much longer and more insidious presence of oily contaminants in Gulf ecosystems. The real damage will play out over years, not days.
While the focus in coming weeks will be on defending the coast from oily tides, lawyers will parachute in ahead of beach workers. At issue will be how much wildlife and seafood was present before the spill, and how much was lost. The inventorying will pit legions of scientists from the Gulf states against legions of scientists from BP. While President Obama is holding BP responsible for restitution, just how much damage occurs? This will be the crucial question in the years of court fights to come. This disaster will mean full employment for a shrimp-bucket-full of attorneys and biologists.
That means the more the Gulf states know about their coastal environment, the more money they will collect at the back end. They'd better hope they haven't gutted their environmental agencies, because they need them right now. Big Time. Count, count, count.
Scoffing at environmentalists is national sport, of course, until pollution hits close to home. Another prediction, based on what happened in Alaska, is that once the oil starts to devastate commercial marine livelihoods, you'll see tree-hugger conversions among redneck resource workers more dramatic than that of Saul on the road to Damascus. Fishermen will howl - but still will lose their livelihoods.
A likely beneficiary of this spill are environmental organizations and their efforts to promote conservation and discourage new drilling. BP has a history of shooting itself in the foot. It allowed corrosion on the Alaska pipeline it managed to trigger a spill that helped derail a campaign to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, and now has this nightmare right after the Obama Administration proposed opening new swaths of coast to oil leasing. The oil industry is its own worst enemy.
Eventually there will be investigations, some kind of Congressional legislative reform, and -- if the spill is costly enough -- an overhaul of BP management similar to what happened at Exxon, in which a cowboy company gets (some) religion. Technology will take a stride ahead and things might get a bit safer, for a while.
But the threat will remain, vigilance will relax, and risks will run higher as the world gets more desperate for oil and drills in ever-more-inaccessible places. Petroleum product consumption in the United States has increased about 10 percent since the Exxon Valdez spill, according to the Department of Energy, despite some impressive renewable energy and conservation efforts.
Until we make real strides in weaning from fossil fuels -- which, incidentally, would help save the climate, save the oceans, and get us less entangled in endless wars -- it's almost certain I can recycle this blog post again in ten or twenty years.
But energy conservation is one of those dad-gum socialist ideas, isn't it? Why conserve when it's so American to just let the oil industry do its thing?
Alison Rose Levy: What the Gulf Oil Spill Has to Do With Your Health
Martha McCully: Prince William & Me: My Run-In With The London Royalty (PHOTOS)
The southern border is the site of another grand, man made disaster. The no. one priority should be STOP the ILLEGAL ALIENS. We do not need comprehensive immigration reform, to secure the border.
Visit the NumbersUSA website and help fight illegal immigration.
My name is Merle Savage; a female general foreman during the EVOS beach cleanup in 1989, which turned into 20 years of extensive health deterioration for me and many other workers. Dr. Riki Ott visited me in 2007 to explain about the toxic spraying on the beaches. She also informed me that Exxon's medical records and the reports that surfaced in litigation brought by sick workers in 1994, had been sealed from the public, making it impossible to hold Exxon responsible for their actions.
Dr. Riki Ott has written two books; Sound Truth & Corporate Myth$ and Not One Drop. Dr. Ott quotes numerous reports in her books, on the toxic chemicals that were used during the 1989 cleanup. Black Wave the Film is based on Not One Drop, with interviews of EVOS victims; my interview was featured in the section; Like a War Zone.
http://www.blackwavethefilm.com
Exxon developed the toxic spraying; OSHA, the Coast Guard, and the state of Alaska authorized the procedure and VECO implemented it. Beach crews breathed in crude oil that splashed off the rocks and into the air -- the toxic exposure turned into chronic breathing conditions and central nervous system problems, along with other massive health issues.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5632208859935499100
http://www.silenceinthesound.com/stories.shtml
http://www.silenceinthesound.com/gallery.shtml
Your post addresses that.
Fanned.
After posting on this issue for the last few days and listening to the angry vitriol from the anti-environment crowd, I don't think there's much more to be said. The message will not get through to a lot of American's who don't understand how inextricably linked we are to the earth's fragile ecosystems.
Whining about the Gulf is all nonsense and flexing of arrogant intellectual muscle from blue state socialist cry baby scientists. People who don't get that a free unregulated market is all we need to live large, cash in, and feel the love.
Nobody is above the law except oil companies, phone companies, auto companies, traitors, torturers, war profiteers and war criminals... I am sure that Holder and Obama will decide this was simply "poor judgment" like they did with the lawyers that undermined the Constitution in favor of torture....
Capitalism without regulation is suicide and these folks are trying to take us with them....
http://rs443.rapidshare.com/files/382472763/Mark.Levin.2010.04.30.oil.worker.interview.mp3
1) Mexico has more billionaires than any other country. So they have alot more power and connections than most people realize and they now have it in for us.
2) China/North Korea has always had it in for us and would gladly carry out such an operation if they could get away with it.
3) North Korea recently sunk a South Korean ship, possibly with a suicide mission mini-sub !!!
4) Back to Mexico. Their unseen/undereported power and recent anger towards us could have finally allowed/triggered off a go-go attitude amongst those who have these kinds of attack plans just waiting to be carried out.
5) Conclusion-Theory:
China/Mexico/Cuba/Venezuela/North Korea/Iran/etc. --- Mexico which is part of NAFTA-power is a buffer/ally to the US that keeps the peace between the US and these hostile terrorist freindly anti-US nations in the south-western hemisphere.
Possible Obama-team collusion with this or any plot that was chosen by whoever was willing to take it on, as was mentioned elsewhere/other websites to further Obamas/left wing groups aims/goals.
Does anyone else see this as possible or agree with it ???
Also I say that we should pass AZ SB 1070 in every US State and not to let Mexico tell/force/persuade/intimidate us into what to do regarding illegal aliens/immigration-etc, by any means that they employ to achieve that aim/goal.
Go read how Mexico treats foreign born Mexican citizens and illegal aliens in their country:
Mexican Constitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Constitution_of_the_United_Mexican_States
Is it possible, yes it could be possible.
Is it probable, IMHO no. I do not believe they would do such a thing when they are as much at risk as we are.
My main worry is if they do not get this well closed off, some of that oil may get caught up in the Gulf Stream flow and head up the East Coast as well.