Circumstance and possible willful negligence brought havoc to the Gulf Coast but bureaucracy has sludged up the recovery and repair effort.
The U.S. Coast Guard, (USCG), EPA(Environmental Protection Agency), British Petroleum (BP), Louisiana State Police (LSP) and Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the rest of the components of the bureaucratic alphabet soup have rejected, the efforts of local aqua-businessmen to help staunch the spread of the Gulf/BP Oil Slick. None of these fine citizens asked to staunch the FLOW; that would be out of the question considering the logistics of the mess’ genesis 5000 feet below the surface of the gulf.
All the people in the alphabet soup of governmental representation, red tape dispensers and paper tigers use the excuse the chemicals dumped into the gulf are toxic and can injure the fishermen if they come in contact with the chemicals. This is true. BP has used a highly toxic agent to disperse the water-borne oil. This has two effects: the oil breaks down into smaller masses then poisons every aquatic-dwelling thing it contacts. Concentrated inhalation can kill humans.
This is disgusting as well as sickening. First BP understates the damage done to the environment. They’ve ignored the economics and the future livelihoods of over 200,000 people. Then they compound the damages with a chemical injection assuring the sterility of the fishing industry for years to come. Last, they’re found to have been hooked up with the industry “regulators”, you know the guys and gals at Mineral Management Services (MMS) – Department of the Interior. These people allowed safety inspections to be falsified, while maintaining as “close” a relationship as they could with the industry they “regulated”.
Now that MMS has dropped the ball and showed government expertise to be a colonic farce, it’s the good folks of the gulf region are left to watch their payroll, their livelihood and their futures die with the aquaculture they once shepherded and guarded the safety of for so many years. They’ve got to do this while being told they CANNOT help prevent the spread of this toxic contagion. This is happening even though the incompetent clots at BP and other interfering entities exercising misplaced control seem capable of accomplishing NOTHING in this respect.
The red tape dispensers said the citizen/fishers need HazMat training to deal with the chemicals. That may be so. But, these gulf coast citizens merely wanted to use the nearly entire fleet of small, ocean-going craft in their possession to stem the spread of the toxic mass. It was first known as “oil-sheen” and is now described as “tar-balls” spreading across the gulf and entering the currents taking them toward Florida. Now the toxic current is moving fifty feet beneath the surface killing aquatic life below and on the surface with its chemical confluence of death.
In 2008, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) stated the Gulf region generated over $10.5 billion in sales, $5.6 billion in income and produced 200,000 jobs.
BP is required to pay for all clean-up costs. But they need only dedicate $75 Million to all other claims. Take a repeat look at the dollar amounts stated earlier in this article concerning income, sales and jobs affected by this– those are billions (with a “B”) not the millions expected by a short-sighted Congress after the Exxon Valdez Incident.
The spread of the mass must be stemmed now, not when they get around to “training” the people to handle the chemicals.
Incredibly, BP introduced the sterilizing agent killing the Gulf’s industrial base. But the bureaucracy and ham-handed handling of the containment and clean-up effort is neutering the populace ready to fight to clean, preserve and recover the environment they rely on for their survival. Their sense of hopelessness grows daily.
The Federal Government, the Petrochemical Exploration Industry, the hierarchy of BP, the sterile control factor Louisiana bureaucrats have shown has been shameful and produced an education to be valued.
This is what Big Government, uncontrolled and improperly regulated Big Business and Bureaucracies without leadership can produce for you and yours: the terrible feeling on Creeping Impotence and the neutering of individual efforts to control and direct your personal environment.
Thanks for listening
