After reading the article “Canada Criticized by Washington State After Cleanup Exercise,” (June 10, 2018 Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail) I am compelled to write to the “Editor.”
The exercise by Canadian response ended with concern by Washington state that Canada is not prepared for an oil spill in a maritime environment.
Wow America, that is hypocrisy unimaginable! Lets look at the USA. Exxon Valdez, Alaska. 1,300 miles of oiled coast, 32,000 damaged Alaskans. Almost 30 years later, oil still lies under the rocks of Prince William Sound. After ruining the environment for decades, Exxon let families suffer for 20 years before paying 7 cents on the dollar to those harmed.
OK, that was 30 years ago, does the USA lead the world in oil spill response? BP Gulf of Mexico. 68,000 square miles of oiled ocean, over 200 million gallons of crude ouil killing everything in its path. Not prepared. USA solution? Spray Corexit poison to disperse and hide from sight the damage.
Exxon was 30 years ago, BP Gulf blowout 18 years ago. So, the United States of America owns the most and largest oil spills in all of the North American continent without any success in recovery.
I will give readers a chance to decide just how effective America’s spill response is.
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline terminal oil spill of September 2017 clearly shows America’s woefully inadequate spill response. Just across the bay from the Valdez terminal and America’s best spill response organizations, an oil spill large enough to turn the bay purple as seen from aerial photos, Alaska’s premier response organizations after deploying 23,000 foot of oil boom with 300 trained personnel and 25 vessels after four days of effort in glassy calm waters, recovered 400 gallons of “oily water.” If you add one cup of oil to 400 gallons of water you legally have 400 gallons of oil mix.
A pathetic amount of recovery within sight of America’s best spill response.
Washington state’s Assessment and concern of Canadian spill response is a slap in the face to our good neighbor Canada.
In the early years of Alaska’s Prudue Bay oil discovery, floating disks were released into the Arctic Ocean from Alaska’s North Slope. The only disk recovered came from the north shores of Scotland.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]
When the USA allowed Shell Oil to drill in the Alaska arctic waters thousands of miles from spill response, and no technology to address oil spills on the ocean or in ice which would lead to hemorrhage of crude oil to flow across all of Canadian arctic shoreline and through Davis Strait/Labrador Sea all the way to Scotland.
Did Canada raise concerns about that risk? No, they should have but Canada is polite and non-judgmental of the USA’s spill response. That needs to change when it comes to oil spill response.
Better technologies do exist, but has been obstructed by Alaska’s oil chair, Senator Lisa Murkowski.
There is better technology for oil spill response.
After being obstructed by the U.S. oil industry, I offer Canada the opportunity to lead in global spill response through completely different technology then the ineffective methods currently employed by all nations.
Jim Cobb
