Friday, July 02, 2010

Criminal conduct

Sometimes the stuff you read is just mind boggling:
It may be hard to fathom, but even with gallons of oil spewing every minute from BP's broken well head in the Gulf of Mexico, not all the oil pollution in the Gulf is BP's fault.
[…]
But even though many millions of gallons of crude oil have leaked into the Gulf, much of what is washing up on beaches near in and around the Gulf is not from the Deepwater Horizon spill.
"We've done a number of tarballs from Florida, Key West, Miami and so forth, none of which so far have matched the Deepwater Horizon," Gronlund said. "The tarballs that have been found on the beach in Florida are fuel oil."
Fuel oil -- that means the oil comes from ships, not crude oil from a broken deep sea oil well.
[…]
Why might other ships spill oil? Coast Guard officials said some may have an undetected leak. Others, officials surmise, may be purposely spilling waste oil and dirty oil-laced bilge water into areas already fouled by a major spill hoping not to get caught. Dumping like that is cheaper than having tanks pumped out and cleaned properly according to government regulations when they get to shore. But if they are caught illegally dumping they could face fines above $1 million.

[…]
And the dishonest shippers do often get caught. Coast Guard inspectors will board ships when they come into port. They will obtain a sample of oil from the ship's tank, send it to Gronlund's lab where his scientists can compare the oil in the sample to the oil found on the shore. If they match, it doesn't matter why the oil leaked out -- accidentally or not. The ship's owners are responsible. Gronlund's chemists often have to testify in court about the oil they test.
Willingly dumping oil into the ocean, where countless creatures live, just to save money goes beyond being reckless.  That’s just criminal.  I sincerely hope that they catch all those bastards and make them pay.

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