Louisiana Oil Spill

I can't stop thinking about the massive oil spill in Louisiana. The most frightening thing about it is the fact that, in spite of space age technology, they don't know how to shut it off. So it keeps on gushing more and more, hour by hour. The estimate of gallons per hour keeps going up. The cleanup could take years, once they succeed in stopping the flow. So much for the fool-proof new oil rigs! So much for "Drill Baby Drill!" (Haven't heard much from her lately.)

The saltmarsh grasses were already compromised by overdevelopment when Katrina hit Louisiana; this accounted for the severity of the hurricane and storm surge damage. The remaining grasses will be still further destroyed by the oil, and the coastline will be made still more vulnerable.

The abundant wildlife on the Gulf Coast is already feeling the effects. One of the first reported casualties was a Northern Gannet, taken somewhere to be cleaned. Historically this has been mostly a futile effort, but it gives wildlife rehabilitators less of a feeling of helplessness.

Fishermen, shrimpers and crabbers, out of their normal line of work, are lining up to help spread booms to contain the oil. According to a report I heard yesterday on NPR, these people are making $48 an hour to do this. The bad part is that there are not enough booms available to do the job adequately.

I don't know what the long-term solution to all this might be. According to Jad Mouawad's editorial, "The Spill vs. a Need to Drill" in the Sunday, May 2 NY Times, "The country needs the oil - and the jobs... Much has changed since 1969. The nation's demand for oil has surged, rising more than 35 percent over the past four decades, while domestic production has declined by a third. Oil imports have doubled..." leading to more dependence on foreign oil and the intractable political problems that result.

Mouawad goes on to say: "... developing credible, cheap and abundant alternatives to oil will take many decades, and in the meantime, cars need gasoline and planes need kerosene. The United States is still the world's top oil consumer by far."

As they teach in environmental ethics classes, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." We seem to be learning that the hard way.