The Coast Guard approved dozens of requests by BP to spread hundreds of thousands of gallons of surface oil dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico despite the Environmental Protection Agency’s directive on May 26 that they should be used only rarely, according to documents and correspondence analyzed by a Congressional subcommittee.Between allowing BP to forbid the use of safety gear, decide who can fly where and who can see what, the Coast Guard has been operating as though it were a subsidiary of British Petroleum, rather than an agency of the U.S. Government.
BP's overuse of dispersants means that the oil, instead of being seen as large globs and goops that might have been picked up by skimmers, is now entering the Gulf's food chain. They've done a bang-up job of poisoning the Gulf.
We should have foreseen that a branch of the U.S. military would throw in with a foreign corporation...
ReplyDeleteOkay, I guess we can be forgiven for not seeing this coming.
But it would be nice to arrange it so all Gulf Coasties had to restrict their diet to seafood caught in the gulf for the next two years.
If duty and loyalty and a fucking paycheck isn't enough to motivate them to protect us, perhaps they could be convinced if their own lives were on the line.