How safe will the Gulf Coast & Mississippi River be in the forseeable future for all forms of life?
The environmental impact of the sewage leaks, the chemical spills/ explosions, the hospital waste and morgues, the “major” oil spill… this is disasterous.
Why are we not talking about it?
There will be severe health implications for hundreds of thousands of residents in the Gulf coast & potentially further north as the spill is at the mouth of the Mississippi, for many years to come. Drinking water will be contaminated and yet the majority of the poor who inhabit the region cannot afford bottled water.
Wells will be contaminated and livestock and crops will be ruined as they will have nothing but the poisoned water to drink… and fish will be killed with the toxins in the water. Wildlife will be infected and die. Alligators will need to be hunted and killed as they will carry diseases from eating so many dead and contaminated corpses.
Sorry for all the doom and gloom, but it’s a big deal.
This is a major environmental disaster. And we need to start hearing about a plan for clean up asap from the Federal Gov’t.
The spill was first spotted Thursday during a flyover, department spokeswoman Jean Kelly told MSNBC.com, “but we still don’t have access to the area.”
The spill was just north of Venice, a town in the Mississippi River Delta, and 65 miles southeast of New Orleans.
….
Each tank is 20 feet tall and 200 feet in diameter, she said. The department initially estimated that total capacity could be one million barrels each but later reduced that to 80,000 each.
Kelly said the department still doesn’t know who owns the tanks and therefore can’t be sure how much oil is in them.
….
Homeland Security officials were restricting access to the area, and Kelly said the state agency had notified both the Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency so that they can begin clean-up.
Coast Guard officials in St. Louis said they were looking into the report but that their priority was search and rescue in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
MSNBC ~ `Major oil spill’ seen on Mississippi River
It’s great that they’ve identified a big problem, but not so great that they still don’t know who owns them, how much oil is in them and therefore potentially in the Mississippi and gulf… and have no real plan to clean it up and protect the public health.
This whole thing is a complete and utterly tragic failure in emergency preparedness or response. Criminal really.