Dan Froomkin reports today at Huffington Post on the increasing questions being raised about the optimistic report released by the Obama administration several weeks back about the Gulf oil spill. Readers may remember that the gist of the report is that--surprise, surprise!--the oil is simply vanishing, unexpectedly so.
As I've said before, having grown up in a county dotted with oil wells, many of them from the days of our county's oil boom and inactive when I was a child, I know from the evidence of my own eyes that even a small amount of crude oil released into the environment has long-term deleterious effects. Throughout the area in which I grew up there were patches where oil wells had once stood and oil had been allowed to seep into the ground around the well.
These were waste areas, long after the oil spills had occurred. Nothing would grow on them. They were sere, brown, desert-like places in the midst of a landscape otherwise known for its lush green fertility.
These were waste areas, long after the oil spills had occurred. Nothing would grow on them. They were sere, brown, desert-like places in the midst of a landscape otherwise known for its lush green fertility.
The effects of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will be long-term and highly destructive to the ecology of the entire Gulf region. The government would be better advised to admit that this is the case and deal with those effects, than to try to spin the data for p-r reasons.
