The BP Oil Spill: Obama admin is dropping the ball on fixing this catastrophe

By Kate Kotler

On April 20, 2010 an explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizons oil rig killed 11 platform workers and seriously injured 17 other workers aboard the rig and put into motion the biggest environmental disaster in the history of the United States.  Deepwater is located 40 miles south of the Louisiana coast line in the Gulf of Mexico, near the Mississippi River delta. In the month plus since the wellhead explosion which caused the oil leak the spill has spread to encompass 2,500 to 9,100 square miles.  Oil is starting to come ashore from Fort Walton Beach, FL. to Gulfport, MS..  And, it is now estimated that with current flow and weather patterns that the oil spill will continue to travel up along the Atlantic seaboard with oil arriving in the mid-Atlantic approximately 84 days from today (via NCAR + UCAR).

SUNY Stonybrook professor Carl Saffina (Pew/Guggenheim fellow and president of the Blue Ocean Institute) says that “We are all Gulf victims now:”

We’re hearing a lot about the economic dislocation of thousands of Gulf fishers and their families — and rightly so. But the oil disaster is a much larger calamity than the Gulf itself. It’s not just a regional disaster. It has hemispheric implications.

The Gulf is a large region, but its natural importance is even more outsized, disproportionate to its area. The Gulf is the hourglass pinch-point for millions of migrating creatures that funnel into, breed in, migrate through and then fan out of it to populate an enormous area of the continents and coasts. Anything that affects living things inside the Gulf affects living things far outside it.”

[Via CNN]

Impact on Wildlife
In particular, animals that inhabit the Atlantic Ocean travel to the Gulf of Mexico to breed; this includes two endangered species of sea turtles that breed nowhere else in the world.  According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 278 sea turtles have been stranded between April 30 and June 2.  Only 40 of those turtles have been cleaned and transported to the NOLA aquarium for further care, the remaining 238 were either found dead or died in veterinary care.  During the same time period 31 dolphins were found stranded – only one was alive when found – and, that dolphin died later while in veterinary care.

This isn’t even taking into account the countless fish, shrimp, oysters and other deep sea creatures and birds (including the endangered Brown Pelican, pictured right covered in BP oil sludge) being affected by the spill.

Impact on the Economy
The projections for how the spill will impact the tourism, vacation rental, commercial fishing and restaurant industries is catastrophic – reaching well over $1.36 billion in lost revenue.  (Not to mention, Americans can count on seeing oil and gas prices spike to new highs over the summer months as all distributors have to scramble to compete as BP raises prices to pay for the cleanup.)

“I am outraged and disgusted at the situation. I know there are many shady things going on ‘behind the curtains’ and it just feels to me like BP was thinking about profit and PR strategy when the accident first occurred rather than how to stop this from happening.  Now it’s an unprecedented event that will affect our economy and, more importantly, our ecology for years (if not decades) to come,” Chef Hosea Rosenberg (of StrEAT Chefs,  Jax Fish House and winner of Season 5 of Bravo’s Top Chef) told GGotS via email.

Screenwriter and Ghost Projekt author, Joe Harris, told GGotS that watching Republican pundits (like Sarah Palin) claiming that offshore drilling is still safe and that the BP disaster is the fault of environmentalists is “Like looking back on the Muppet Show once you’re a grownup and realizing that everyone was high.”

Using New Media to Publicize Outrage
Harris and Rosenberg are not the only people shouting loudly at the innerwebs about this horrifying situation.  Actor John Cusack has been constantly re-Tweeting BP news coverage to his 113, 518 followers.  And, of course, the BP oil disaster has been heavily covered by MSNBC‘s Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

While other (and less liberal) news outlets and celebs have been slow on the uptake, the mainstream is now catching onto and reporting the epic implications of the oil spill.  Good Morning America sent Sam Champion to dive into the spill with Philippe Cousteau, Jr. (grandson of Jacques Cousteau).  Says Champion, “As bad as the pictures have been for a month now, you really don’t get the full scope [of the disaster] by looking at the surface.”

GMA went onto report that the efforts to dilute the oil with chemical dispersants are failing and only creating a toxic mixture of chemicals which reach down 25 feet or deeper into the water via plumes that will most certainly reach bottom before long.

Said Cousteau, “This has to be one of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen underwater.”

The Obama Administration Acts… sorta

Elizabeth Birnbaum (head of the Minerals Management Service) resigned on May 27th due to the “overwhelming pressure” being put on her to be more aggressive in taking charge of the Gulf oil spill.  Some speculate her resignation came just before she was to be fired by the president over her mishandling of the response to this environmental emergency.

Then, on June 1st, President Obama and US Attorney, Eric H. Holder, Jr. announced that they were opening a criminal investigation (in addition to a civil investigation) into the BP disaster.

“The Department of Justice will ensure that the American people do not foot the bill for this disaster and that our laws are enforced to the fullest extent possible,” said Holder [via The Washington Post].

Still, with all current attempts to cap the leak having failed, it is estimated that BP won’t be able to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico before August, 2010.

IT IS NOT ENOUGH:
Our question is: Why isn’t the Obama Administration acting more urgently in this situation?  Is the BP oil disaster to Barack Obama what Hurricane Katrina was to George W. Bush?  Aren’t Obama’s claims that crews are “making progress” in cleaning up the spill and capping the leak just political spin to minimize damage done to his administration and to corporate giant, BP?

“I believe that big oil is so powerful that they influence the media and our government to0 heavily.  We will never hear the whole truth or ever get the justice that we need. People’s lives have already been ruined or severely affected and BP is just not [being held] accountable,” said Hosea Rosenberg.

Another perspective was shared by Joe Harris, “If [our country] is not willing to break this addiction to burning dirty shit we dangerously dig out of remote parts of the earth (ie: oil), spare me the outrage over whether Obama is stemming the cataclysm fast enough.”

So what’s the message here?  Basically that Americans should be horrified at how a corporation has fucked over the environment.  And, that we,  as ordinary citizens, need to put pressure on media and government to a.) hold BP accountable, b.) stem the tide of this disaster (which, incidentally, will not only affect our generation, our children’s generation — but THEIR children’s generation and potentially several more generations after that).  We’ll step off our soapbox now… but, this whole situation smacks as something which we should “File Under WTF?!?”

[Oil rig image via TreeHuggers.com, photo of Brown Pelican by Charles Riedel via AP and oil spill maps via IfItWasMyHome.com]

Thanks to Hosea Rosenberg and Joe Harris for taking time to comment for this article.

JUMP BELOW THE CUT TO FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN HELP IN THIS CRISIS:

What Can You Do?

• Talk. First, share this map with your friends so they can understand the impact as well. Next, write to your Representatives and Senators and share your feelings about this disaster. (Also share related articles, videos and posts via social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook! ~GGotS)
• Think. The EPA is soliciting ideas for possible technology solutions to aid in the oil spill response efforts. Submit your idea. You can also visit the clever inventors over at GulfClean.org and help them build their crowd-sourced technology for oil cleanup.
• Volunteer. Lousiana and Florida are both looking for volunteers to help in cleanup and prevention. If you have a boat and live or work on the gulf coast, you can participate in the Vessels of Opportunity program.
• Donate The National Wildlife Foundation and Save Our Seabirds are accepting donations for coastal relief.

Geek Girl on the Street would like to add to this list: Boycott BP oil — park your car in your garage and bike to work/use public transportation/walk.  At the very worst, if you have to drive, support gas stations and merchants who do not do business with BP!!!!

[Action plan via IfItWasMyHome.com -- thanks!]