Saturday, February 15, 2014

Is This Really What an Oil Spill Clean Up Looks Like?

From:  Green Peace 

Blogpost by Melina Laboucan-Massimo - July 20, 2012 at 12:33
 
Because that is what i keep saying to myself over and over in my head...
Melina Laboucan-Massimo at the site of an oil spill "clean up"
Melina Laboucan-Massimo at the site of an oil spill "clean up". Photo credit: Joe Whittle 
Last week, a fellow member of the community of Little Buffalo and I journeyed to the site of the April 2011 Rainbow pipeline oil spill.
 What we found was a body of water that was completely black on the surface with black sludge along the shoreline. There was no life in this body of water nor was there any vegetation along the shoreline. Instead, dead wood lined the shore and an awful smell permeated the area. After 15 months, this was not what I was expecting to find in an apparent ‘oil spill clean up area’.
Oily goo on log
Photo Credit: Joe Whittle
According to the latest update on the Plains Midstream website from July 5th, “Plains completed all of the remediated work and much of the reclamation work before the winter.”
From what I saw last week, as depicted in these pictures, this claim is clearly misleading and sorely inadequate.
It was clear that this section of the site has not been able to support a healthy return of vegetation and it should be fenced off to wildlife that could be in the area. However, we found tracks of deer and wolf near the contaminated body of water.
The supposed clean up of this site is giving false hope to the public and surrounding communities that governmental responsibility and corporate accountability are being upheld, when in reality, they are not.

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