Why Americans distrust their government, part 5

Dear Friends,

We have been hearing alot lately about the disastrous consequences of the BP oil spill.  Most of those discussion focus on the impact on the wildlife, marshes and beaches in the short term.  What BP, other big oil companies and our government do not want to talk about is that the impact will last for decades if not longer.  They want us to believe that oil spills like this one and the Exxon Valdez can be cleaned up and things will be back to normal in a few years.

Here is an excerpt from 2003 article from sciencedaily.com reporting on a study conducted at the University of North Carolina about the lasting impact of the Exxon Valdez disaster. 

"Studies we reviewed and synthesized showed that oil has persisted in surprisingly large quantities for years after the Exxon Valdez spill in subsurface reservoirs under course intertidal sediments," Peterson said. "This oil was sequestered in conditions where weathering by wave action, light and bacteria was inhibited, and toxicity remained for a decade or more."
"Higher mortality was induced by concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons of only a few parts per billion," Peterson said. "These results require a complete reconsideration of the foundations of ecological risk assessment and ecotoxicology because acute mortality from oil involves concentrations perhaps 1,000 times greater. Earlier experiments incorrectly implied that lower oil concentrations were safe, which the new work clearly showed was not true."
Beyond their acute losses, marine mammals and sea ducks suffered high mortality for years after the accident in part because they ate invertebrates contaminated by the hidden oil and also contacted oil directly while digging up prey. Species as diverse as sea otters, harlequin ducks and killer whales suffered large, long-term losses. Oiled mussel beds and other tidal shoreline habitats will take an estimated 30 years to recover.

Here is an excerpt from another article from sciencedaily.com on April 14, 2010 noting the continuing problems over 20 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Now, using the biomarker CYP1A, which is induced upon exposure to crude oil, an international team led by Daniel Esler, from the Centre for Wildlife Ecology, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, has measured prolonged exposure to oil in local wildlife populations.
"One of the more remarkable and unanticipated findings of recent research is the length of time over which animals were exposed to residual oil," said Esler. "Our research has shown that oil remaining in the area, particularly in inter-tidal areas, was encountered and ingested by some near-shore animals."
"We believe it is important to recognize that the duration of presence of residual oil and its associated effects are not limited to a few years after spills, but for some vulnerable species may occur over decades."

Our government is not being honest with us.  There is no way that the Gulf coast will recover from this oil disaster in a few year or even a few decades.  The oil will kill the marshes, and they will erode away even faster than they do now.  The loss of the marshes as protection against storm surge will cause incredible damage to the communities along the coast every time a storm hits.  The wildlife will continue to ingest oil and suffer from it.  Some species will never return to anything like normal.

If we insist on relying on cheap gasoline and diesel fuels, we can be certain that environmental disasters like the Exxon Valdez and the Deep Horizon well disasters will happen over and over again.  The American people already know that if we keep drilling offshore, these disasters will keep happening and they also know that the impacts of these environmental disasters will last for decades.  We need a government and leaders who are willing to stand up and say that the emperor has no clothes on.  So far no one in our government is willing to say that because it would also require that person to tell the American people another fact that they already know, that we can not continue to guzzle oil and ignore the consequences.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal