With President Barack Obama calling the current oil-well spill in the Gulf of Mexico “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced,” the president’s Tuesday night speech gave no more encouragement for solution than have the BP oil rig spokesmen, whose estimates of the volume of gushing oil have risen dramatically over the past two months.
Everyone agrees there is a major problem. No one offers a major solution.
When millions of gallons of crude oil are pouring from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, nearly a mile below the surface of the water, there obviously is no simple way to put in a stopper.
What’s needed, of course, is a way to seal off the rampant oil flow, or to capture it and pipe it into oil tank ships. But whatever has been tried hasn’t been very effective. So the damage has been huge, and continues.
Just consider the effects of millions of gallons of thick, sticky crude oil in salty Gulf water — heading to shore.
* There is no way to estimate the adverse effect on all sea life. Pelicans are soaked and soggy and can’t fly or eat.
* The Gulf shrimp, oyster and fish fleets are idled by the disaster.
* The tremendous Gulf beach and tourist business — at the beginning of the normally big summer season — has been greatly discouraged, not only at seaside but far inland.
* The environment, at sea and along the shore, has been damaged tremendously, and will not recover for many years.
* The whole economies of the people who live and work in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and far inland have suffered varying degrees of serious interruption.
The total cost surely will rise beyond current estimates.
BP, normally pumping huge quantities of oil and earning big economic rewards, is not only losing production, but will be responsible to pay billions of dollars in damages to those who have suffered — and will suffer for a long time to come.
It has been estimated that BP soon may be capturing 90 percent of the escaping oil. But whatever the percentage, consider the huge continuing losses, not only to BP, but also to the people and businesses along the Gulf beaches, and to fisheries and the rest.
The destructive effects of the spill from a single undersea oil well will damage the lives of millions of people and stagger the whole coastal economy in untold ways for decades.
The present damage is tremendous — and the end is not in sight. When will the destructive oil flow be ended?
No one except the unfortunate people who are personally adversely affected by the oil spill can ever understand its worst dimensions.