Wednesday, July 28, 2010

What oil?

This whole issue with Mississippi, AL., and FL. telling people there is nothing wrong with their beaches and it's ok to swim is weighing pretty heavily on my conscious.  When I was a kid in Kentucky we would take vacations at Panama City Beach almost every other summer, so I keep cycling memories of that and thinking about my own children being exposed to the nastiness I saw when flying over the Mississippi beach area.

As we were taking the tour through Ocean Springs, our tour guide (a conservationist who grew up in O.S.) pointed out the nice, pristine, freshly raked beaches.  He told us the city had brought in fresh sand and covered up any "dirty" looking stuff which may have been below it. 

Well it turns out that may be illegal.  One of the folks I was talking to last night sent me this video of local environmental lawyer, Stuart Smith, talking about this practice....it's called "Land Farming" and according to him it's highly illegal:



It seems like the only thing BP, the Coast Gaurd, and the Gulf Coast states is concentrating on is covering up this problem with cosmetic measures.  It's like putting make up over a wound, it may hide the problem in the short term but you may also infect the wound and make it worse.  I am deeply worried about the way this disaster is being handled and the lack of oversight.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I appreciate the way you are acting on your deep concern. Thank you.

This is more sad news that most of us already somehow knew. But someone has to actually say it, right? Thanks.

You have any thoughts about the use of prison labor? The articles I'm reading are painting a grim picture.

Anonymous said...

All the things BP could buy with money lost from Oil Disaster - interesting visual display

http://dailypicdump.com/5f324f/all-the-things-bp-could-buy-16-pics