New Oil Spill in Gulf ... 100-Mile Slick → Washingtons Blog
New Oil Spill in Gulf ... 100-Mile Slick - Washingtons Blog

Monday, March 21, 2011

New Oil Spill in Gulf ... 100-Mile Slick


A new 100-mile slick has been spotted in the Gulf, only 30 miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this:

DI mayor told there is minor leak in gulf: fox10tv.com


The Coast Guard says that it is probably "silt" instead of oil. While definitive chemical tests have not yet been conducted, and so silt can't be ruled out, many witnesses said that the substance had an oily smell.

Moreover, it is hard to place too much confidence in the Coast Guard's opinion since, as I wrote last year:

Instead of admitting that there is a problem, BP and the Coast Guard's spin doctors have come up with code words for oil: instead of “oil sheen”, they call it “fish oil”; instead of "oil mousse", they call it “algae”

Whether the slick ends up being oil, silt or something else, the important point - as I noted last year - is that big oil spills will keep happening if we keep on drilling in hard to get to locations without demanding that the rigs be operated safely.

Indeed, the oil spills in the Gulf and the existence of unsafe nuclear power plants follow the exact same pattern as the financial crisis: As long as big companies know the government will bail them out if there's a "meltdown" and will help them cover up the scale of the accidents, as well as the fraud and corner-cutting which led to the disaster, they'll keep doing dangerous things which put our economy, our environment and our health at risk.

The Japanese government is deferring to Tepco, just like the American government deferred to BP.

As long as there is corporate socialism for the too big to fails and "tough love" for the rest of us, the big boys will continue to get into trouble.

As long as the government uses claims of "national security" to protect the big energy companies and big banks, there won't be the transparency needed to ensure a free market and reasonable public accountability.

Oh, and by the way, the effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill did not magically disappear. Here is a roundup of some of the news from the Gulf of Mexico from the first couple of weeks of March:

4 comments:

  1. The real A Holes are the people that are still buying their gas!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the way back up your shit George, really love it.

    We gotta fight the insanity together brother.

    http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2011/03/sickology-vs-penology.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was down in Panacea Florida this weekend and all the roadside sellers were out in force, selling seafood cheap and it looked like plenty were lined up for it. They've got more balls than me to eat that stuff. This part of the country is famous for sticking their heads in the sand and shooting themselves in the economic foot. I guess that's what happens when you have a worldview from the FOX window.

    ReplyDelete

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