However, sometimes it's helpful to look at some history.
Of the ten worst oil spills in recent history, only two have been the result of an oil rig breakdown. Of the other eight, one was a pipeline break in Russia, fully six were the result of oil tanker accidents and one was caused by retreating Iraqi soldiers in 1991.
The media , in panic mode, is calling the current spill the worst in history. Well, its not - at least not yet.
In July 1979, the Mexican stated-owned oil company, PEMEX, was drilling in a deep well in the Bay of Campeche called Ixtoc One. The machinery hit soft strata and things went awry. One estimate says the leakage was 10,000 to 40,000 gallons a day - another puts the figures up at 42, 000 to 126,000 gallons a day. Any rate, it was very bad and it WENT ON FOR NINE MONTHS.
Some capping was done during those months but Ixtoc One was not finally stopped until March of 1980. The total leakage was estimated at 140 million gallons. This largely traveled along the Mexican shore, to Central America then to South America. Later a U.N. panel said it found no evidence of major environmental impact, which seems odd on the face it until we encounter some further facts.
Tanker accidents are very damaging because tankers carry heavy crude. Drilling mishaps emit light crude. This is susceptible to two things that lessen its impact.
One - surface light crude evaporates over a relatively brief time period - weeks into months. Crude that is under the surface is prey to microbial activity common in the oceans.
We tend to forget that oil is a naturally occurring substance - a carbon. There are microbes in the ocean that eat the oil. Mother Nature is amazing. These microbes can be distributed to marshlands in particular. It turns out that there are actual inventories of these microbes warehoused in cold storage around the nation. Sadly, it also turns out, they are still, at the time of writing, sitting in storage.
A side note about Mother Nature. The media, in panic mode once more, is touting a forecast of a heavy hurricane season in the Gulf and what this might do to further damage the shoreline.
A Texas scientist, working on damage following the Ixtoc One spill said beaches on South Padre Island were blackened by the spill. But a hurricane came in from Mexico one night and when he got back to the beaches, they were clean.
In the current situation, at this moment, ships from foreign nations with dispersants on board are not, as of this moment being allowed into U.S. Gulf waters dues to the Jones Act, protecting American workers. An executive action - a stroke of the pen could have lifted this restriction and allowed these nations to help.
This disaster is one of bureaucratic blunders as much as one caused by BP, not to mention Congress which forced drilling out in deep water in reaction to pressure from environmentalists. Words such as "leadership" and "competence" are coming to the fore, but that's a whole other column for another day.
However I hold no brief for BP. According to Tim Carney of the Examiner, British Petroleum has a long history on the left side of American politics. He states that there is an alliance between Senator Kerry and BP to promote an energy bill that includes a cap-and-trade
(greenhouse gas) scheme. Lobbying records show, he says, that BP is no free-market crusader, but instead a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company's bottom line. Items it has lobbied for included greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, Wall Street bailouts, solar panels and biofuels.
Now that one of BP's rigs has caused this disaster, the Left is busy declaring the firm a poster boy for the free market, which is patently untrue.
There may be an underlying reason for the administration's slow reaction to the spill. Rahn Emmanuel, the President's chief of staff, has a close friend by the name of Greenberg. Mr. Greenberg is an author of the BP public relations/ad campaign themed "Beyond Petroleum" which paints the company "green." The campaign was quickly shelved and replaced by CEO Tony Hayward explaining what he's trying to do to stop the oil and mend the damage.
These guys are all very cozy. Add in BP's involvement with the cap-and-trade scheme and it's easy to see how the administration will once again not allow a crisis to go to waste politically. It smells like corporate fascism.
I wonder if BP is waking up to the fact that they can't trust their buddies in D.C.?
Copyright©2010SheilahPepper
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