Some thoughts about the San Francisco Bay oil spill
November 9, 2007
Posted by CindyW in : Communities , trackback
A friend of mine represented the fisherman whose livelihood was destroyed by Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. He has seen first hand how devastating the tragedy was to the people, the wildlives and the entire local eco-system. My stomach churns every time I see the pictures he took of the marine animals caked in thick, toxic oil.
And it hit home this Wednesday when an oil tanker spilled 58,000 gallons of fuel oil into the San Francisco Bay from scrapping a supporting tower of the Bay bridge (connects San Francisco and Oakland). While the amount of spill is nowhere close to Exxon Valdez, it is a big deal to the small San Francisco bay. The oil contains numerous toxic chemicals, including benzene and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which will probably have long-term effects on birds, fish, including migrating salmon, and animals at the bottom of the food chain.
As in all accidents, there are plenty blames to go around – the captain, the fog, the slow reaction of coast guard, etc. Massive environmental cleaning effort, plenty law suites in the near future, lots of dead birds coated in oil, and not a whole lot of changes for future disasters… The fact there is an Oiled Wildlife Care Network speaks volume of how often this sort of things happen. By the way, they are not asking for volunteers at this point yet.
I am not sure what I feel other than sad and worried. The 3 minute video of a pod of dolphins swimming through the oil is still haunting me.
In contrast to this, today I read an unrelated story about a pod of dolphins saving a surfer. Apparently at Marina State Park off Monterey bay (not far from San Francisco), a surfer was bitten badly by a shark. A pod of dolphins formed a protective ring around him and kept the shark at bay until the surfer reached the shore.
Not sure why I put these two events together. Perhaps they illustrate to me that our relationship with the natural world is very mucked up. Call me a dolphin-loving kook, but to me this is yet another wake up call. Instead of pointing fingers at each other about the oil spill, it’s time for the local government, the environmental groups and the businesses to figure out how to prevent such future tragedies. And perhaps in our rare Zen moments, we can even re-examine how we can live harmoniously in the natural world.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Comments»
One of the biggest frustrations about an accident like this is that an organization like Save the Bay (http://www.savesfbay.org/) can spend more than 45 years making a huge difference in the water and ecosystem quality in the Bay, and then one accident like this can undo so much of that work - at least in the most affected portions of the Bay. Thanks for the thoughtful post and let’s hope the fallout from this accident results in greater awareness and action to prevent things like this from happening in the future