A Sea in Flames - Carl Safina [128]
Taking a leaf—as the saying goes—from Obama’s book, Indonesia demands $2.4 billion in compensation from a Thai oil company for a blowout in the Timor Sea that lasted three months, spread a 35,000-square-mile slick, and was eventually plugged with a relief well. Indonesia says the oil damaged seaweed and pearl farms and hurt the livelihoods of 18,000 poor fishermen.
Taking a leaf from Exxon’s book, the Thai-owned oil company rejects Indonesia’s demand.
There’s been a lot about BP to quite rightly criticize. All the good money it’s now throwing around is certainly self-serving. We are right not to let the corporation simply buy our goodwill; in important ways, it doesn’t deserve it. But when, in the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill, the Congress of the United States of Corporate America passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, it sent squeals of delight through the petroleum industry by capping an oil company’s liability at a measly $75 million. Despite its ability to do unlimited damage, Big Oil has, ever since, operated with that congressional promise of impunity.
And so we must acknowledge that BP has voluntarily waived that protection. Compared to the way Exxon turned on the people of Prince William Sound, there’s no comparison. In the wake of this blowout—and I say this with no disrespect to the families of those who died on the Deepwater Horizon—BP has done some honorable things for the people of the Gulf and America. More honorable, one might observe, than the U.S. Supreme Court, when the Court basically let Exxon off the hook. How sad is that?
EARLY SEPTEMBER
Morgan City, Louisiana. “Yes!” the sign says. “We Are Having Our 75th Annual Shrimp and Petroleum Festival.”
“We still need both,” says Lee Darce, assistant director of the festival. “That’s what makes our community. That’s our lifeblood.” Mayor Tim Matte is aware that the festival can seem pretty weird to outsiders. “But we’ve always thought it’s unusual that they think it’s unusual.”
Fire engulfs an oil production platform one hundred miles off the Louisiana coast. Though the fire started in living quarters and there is no loss of life, to a region whose nerves are so frayed the news comes like fingernails on a chalkboard. The same day, from Panaji, India: “Thick and dark layers of oil being deposited with each lapping wave along the sun-kissed beaches of Goa could be another ill omen for the Goa tourism industry.”
On September 2: NOAA reopens fishing and shrimping in over 5,000 square miles of water stretching from Louisiana to Florida. NOAA throws open another 3,000 square miles of fishing area on September 3.
Festivals notwithstanding, there is a big difference between what fishers need and what oil companies need. Oil companies need oil. If it was on land, they’d get it there. And they did. That’s why they’re going into deeper and deeper water. They don’t need marshes, clean water, or vibrant wildlife populations. If the whole ocean was suddenly empty of fish or the marshes vanished or the Gulf’s water all evaporated, they’d still be there for the oil.
Fishermen really need the place, and they need it to be working and pretty intact.
Of about 8,500 water samples so far taken by NOAA from Mississippi to Florida, only two—both from Florida’s Pensacola Pass—came back positive for oil. NOAA scientist Gary Petrae reports, “We are not finding anything, and even when we’re suspicious of oil being present, we’re finding that we’re wrong. We’re doing the best we can—and we can’t find it.” NOAA scientist Janet Baran says, “We haven’t seen any oiled sediments.” Her crews have looked