Don’t Call It an “Oil Spill”

I don’t get all the “oil spill” coverage. I mean, at first I could see it. We thought it was a spill of some oil from a rig that wouldn’t affect too much of anything, for too long.

But now it appears to be a much different situation. Not only is the oil not “spilled”, it’s gushing at an unimaginable rate from more than one spot on the floor of the gulf. And not only that, but apparently the well that used to be there has now turned into something that can’t be managed anymore at all. And it’s growing.

Because of all of this, we have another variable added into the mix as well: chemicals being thrown about, in an effort to control the oil. Oil’s bad, but oil + poison floating around in our air = worse. I mean, I hate to see birds killed – but I hate (even worse) to see my kids get cancer or for me to die from ingesting toxic crops. You know, I realize that sounds selfish but I can’t help it.

With all the bad news out there, I want to know who I can turn to. Is it my president? Probably not. Is it BP, the company that caused this and is cleaning up manipulating this situation? No, I’m not feeling any romance here.

Maybe I can turn to the EPA – maybe they’ll tell me exactly what’s in the water me and my family bathes in and drinks and what’s in the air we all breathe. Well, I don’t know if I’m more afraid of what they are telling me or what they’re not telling me. But I’m sure they think it’s for my own good.

Maybe…maybe there’s no one to turn to. Maybe I just need to leave. Five years ago, I thought Katrina was bad. And I left. Now, I suspect that the BP Destruction of the Gulf may be much, much, much worse – only, we won’t know how bad until we’ve all started our chemotherapy and our breathing treatments.

I have a lot of maybe’s floating around in my head at the moment. There are a lot of things I don’t know right now, because I’m not being told or because no one has answers.

One thing I do know: this is no longer a simple oil spill. It’s a monumental disaster, with unimaginable consequences for our future.

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