BP Complaints

by DigitalGlobe-Imagery

Gulf Oil Spill Disaster

The target keeps moving, the numbers keep changing, and none of them are going down! Every day the size of the oil spill gets bigger, the guesstimate of the amount of oil leaking (barrels or gallons- pick one), and the ecological damage increases. And, how long it will take to find a solution is put further and further out there. 

This will be much bigger and more costly than Exxon Valdez. Bank on it.

Small businesses are going out of business. Fishing vacations along the Gulf coast are being cancelled. The estimates are that a billion pounds of seafood annually is at risk for loss from the Gulf oil catastrophe. At the very least will drive prices up; at the worst may lead to some doing without. The 1,000s of miles of estuary and shoreline are the “nursery” for hundreds of species; some commercial some not. Over 1,000,000 migratory birds are at risk at the moment, with more passing through.

Get the picture?

Of course our politicians are promising RESULTS! President Obama warned Sunday that the vast oil spill nearing the Gulf coastline is a “potentially unprecedented” disaster, as he and other top administration officials defended their response and pledged a “relentless” government effort to clean up the slick. RELENTLESS is the operative word. Are you calmed now?

I don’t think the residents along the Gulf are.

The president visited Louisiana to survey the damage and hear from local officials, who told him the oil is about nine miles from the state’s coast. Obama warned that the spill could “seriously damage” the local economy and environment. “We’re dealing with a massive and potentially unprecedented environment disaster,” Obama said. “It could extend for a long time. It could jeopardize the livelihoods of  thousands of Americans who call this place home.”

It’s much bigger than that.

Could we see the mess get into the “gulf stream” and travel around the Keys and move up the Eastern Seaboard? Some scientists say it’s not a matter of IF, but only WHEN that will happen. We’ve not been here before so everyone is just throwing darts at the numbers and hoping some small number sticks.