5-6-10 by dugan
(Fort Walton Beach, Florida)–In the northern Gulf of Mexico, along a
sparkling coast from Louisana to Florida, everyone is used to
hurricanes. You can prepare, and afterward repair, no matter how
grueling. But this is something different and harder. The BP oil spill
is fading from the headlines nationally. But here, it is the only news.
The monumental and growing spill lurks across the horizon. A sword
hangs by a thread. No one knows when it will fall on these sugar-white
beaches and their rich wildlife.
I’m in the area on sad family business, but the collective anxiety
penetrates everywhere. In the local newspaper and on TV, the spreading
oil is the 24/7 topic, from hyperlocal volunteer efforts to the
frustration of underfunded states and counties waiting for promised
money from BP. Chambers of Commerce count canceled tourist trips,
fishermen fear permanently losing their lives on the sea, environmental
experts mourn the damage already occuring on
the sea bottom.
Locals watch the slick eating hundreds more square
miles a day, unmeasurable with certainty, but always growing. Astronauts watch it metastasize from the Space Station
The the iridescent sheen covers an area about the size of Puerto
Rico, Jamiaica, Delaware–take your pick of sources. In the daily maps,
it seems to be devouring the Gulf itself.
The news that federal officials two years ago lifted the requirement for detailed disaster plans
at Gulf oil platforms is not setting well here. The culprit is the
federal Minerals Management Service, the same agency that looked the
other way at blatant safety violations in West Virginia coal mines and
whose employees were caught in 2008 partying, doing drugs and even
having sex with employees of the energy companies they regulated. The
agency was steadily weakened and politicized by corporate influence
over the last few decades. Today’s result is BP officials scrambling to
pretend they had a plan somewhere.
A growing armada of local fishing boats is heading for the slick,
trailing booms in a desperate attempt to contain the heavier oil. They
are no more than valiant specks. But at least they’re being paid for
being on the sea. For now.
It is hard to imagine Gulf residents wishing for a hurricane instead
of this, because except for a few spots in south Louisiana, the oil
hasn’t landed yet. But the current spell of calm seas won’t last, and
no technological miracle in stopping the oil will take back what is
already spilled.
As BP struggles to portray itself as a responsible corporation
working mightily to fix the spill, a few facts are worth remembering.
It was BP that lobbied hard for exemption from the law that demanded a
disaster plan in advance. And it was BP that cut its safety budget to the bone and reaped the deaths of 15 employees at its Texas City refinery. And it was BP that neglected its Alaska pipeline until it burst across the tundra.
Drill, baby, drill is not a recipe for energy independence. It’s Big
Oil doing as it pleases, cutting corners unfettered by government–until oil rig
workers, refinery riggers and fishermen pay for such greed with lives
and livelihoods lost for good. At least that’s how it looks on the Gulf
Coast right now.