BP & Uncle Sam
On March 1, when we last wrote about the corporate polluting of the waterways (on another blog), little did we know that the corporate nemesis would turn real bad policy on their part into an outright catastrophe. The BP oil company, virtually unregulated by Uncle Sam, and acting as the practical government of the Gulf of Mexico, ignored problems and took huge environmental risks in order to save a relative small amount of money, and have now ruined the entire Gulf through a massive and ongoing offshore oil runoff. The Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) made matters worst by allowing BP to use some of the most toxic chemical dispersant available in huge quantums. Instead of allowing the runoff oil to naturally coagulate so it stays on the water surface, thereby making it easier to skim off and clean up, the dispersant makes the oil sink to the bottom where it is more likely to harm the Gulf aquatic species, along with the dispersant itself. Moreover, the dangerous dispersant may ...