The Brockovich Report

Backs to the Wall

June 13, 2010 | Domestic

It’s hard to go after an enemy you can’t “grasp.” People we can grasp. We know people. We ARE people. So we know how we tick, and how we can be opposed. But against some enemies, we are fighting in the dark, encumbered by the blinding ignorance of exactly how to handle the enemy. That’s what it seems like is going on in the gulf. Our enemy is the spreading oil, and our own ignorance of how to handle it. And some of our solutions are just making the problem worse.

Photo: Taken by independent consultant, Bob Bowcock, working with Erin the day the photo was taken.

I just spent four days in Louisiana spending time with the fisherman of the area, and meeting business owners along the way. It will take me days to process everything I heard and saw because the magnitude of this is overwhelming.

We are looking at the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and maybe beyond.

We are looking at the impact on hundreds of thousands of businesses: lost fishing industry, lost tourism, lost way of human life, lost wildlife.

The damage goes on and on. It’s almost impossible to wrap your mind around the potential disaster, because like a prodigal, the potential is practically unlimited.

As I stood on the shore, and looked out to the vast waters, I felt as if the enemy were coming. I knew that we have yet to feel its full force. Consequences are lurking out there, and when they strike, it won’t be once. It won’t be twice. It will be hundreds of thousands of times. Tiny losses we won’t ever see, but which will mount and mount until we feel the damage. It’s going to be bad. The oil will be killing livelihoods, temporarily if we are lucky. The oil will be destroying wildlife. Nature may come back in general, but in specific, there will be casualties.

It’s not as if it were only oil. The dispersant being used is another layer of destruction added to the mess. The dispersant in itself is poison, and it leeches out the oxygen, and will inevitably enter the ecosystem, poisoning the water. If they would stop using it and let the oil come up so we could see it, then we could at least go after it. How do we manage what we can’t see?

This isn’t something that BP will just be able to clean up. This mess is going to take an army. And, you know, we have an army of volunteers, and the actual army. I say, we figure out a concrete plane of action to prepare ourselves. I say we bring in the troops.

All the citizen of that area that I talked with are passionate about this enemy; they all want to work, and most are willing to get their hands dirty to clean it up. The citizens want to get involved, but it appears that they hit road block after road block. Everything out there is being controlled by BP.

BP is hiring fisherman and telling them they can and can not say. ….

BP is setting up their checkpoints and cleanup points.

BP is deciding who gets in and who doesn’t.

BP is choosing who sees what and who doesn’t.

Who’s in charge here? Is this still the United States of America or is it the Panarchy of BP?

When a disaster like this strikes in other parts of the World, America is first on the scene. In Haiti, we had troops there and lots of them because we knew that it would take strategy, organization and thousands of people to help during the disaster.

Where is that strategy, organization and workforce now?

Now we have a disaster in our own back yard that no one seems to know how to handle–and anarchy. From what I saw, there was NO organization on the ground. BP was calling the shots—and not very well. Our government was just sitting there with their hands in their pockets clenching their proverbial wallets.

And the oil just keeps gushing.

It is time for BP to stand down and the government to step up.

It’s too late to be proactive, but it is not too late to be active…..

It is time for us to assemble the Generals who know how to hold back this particular enemy, and give them the power to take charge, to oversee what the hell is going on and take action. And no more dispersants deployed to drive the enemy underground or to hide the extent of the damage, or send poisonous consequences lurking in the future to hurt our children.

With all the scientific expertise and creative minds at our disposal, we should engage thousands of our finest minds and backs from all of our military branches.

Our way of life is under assault. Time to fight back.

Tags: BP Oil