Too Little Too Late

I apologize in advance but today I am on a bit of a rant. Like most people I know, for the past several weeks (43 days to be exact) I have watched the daily reports on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster with horror and disbelief. What is astounding to me is that these drilling platforms are able to exist in such a fragile environment without some kind of failsafe mechanism. Some way to shut them off deeper in the well.

With so much focus over the past several years on environmental issues and ozone depletion and greenhouse gases how is it possible that something with this kind of potential for destruction is allowed? Even more, how is it possible that Obama is talking about ensuring laws are in place now to prevent such an issue in the future. I read on MSNBC a story that contained these two paragraphs –
Obama said the independent commission investigating the Gulf oil spill will thoroughly examine the disaster and its causes to ensure that the nation never faces such a catastrophe again.
The president said that if laws are insufficient, they'll be changed. He said that if government oversight wasn't tough enough, that will change too. And Obama said if laws were broken, those who were responsible will be prosecuted.

President Obama is clearly not to blame for the oil spill but to me, sometimes it’s simply not good enough to ensure that accidents like this don’t happen again – they should never happen in the first place!
That it happened at all is troubling enough…that it is still going on without any resolution in sight is a disgrace. The devastation to the environment and the lives of people is unfathomable and I suspect will be felt for generations to come.

Not to draw any parallels but, on a somewhat related subject, this past Saturday I was walking along the lake close to my home. About a kilometer west of our house is a parcel of vacant land that is likely about 75 acres. It is prime lakefront property a few blocks west of the town of Port Credit. I knew that this was land that housed large oil storage tanks - long since out of use and I wondered when it would be released for development. After some web research time, it appears that the property is still owned by an oil company but the cost to clean it up for development is more then the value of the land… and so it sits. A few years ago the city of Mississauga negotiated a deal that allowed them to lease a strip of the land along the lake on the south side of the property in order to continue the Waterfront Trail. The vacant land (now seen from all sides) looks like a greenbelt with a fence around it and despite the fact that it is causing no environmental danger, I find it unbelievable that a company can pollute a piece of property and just leave it because the cost of restitution it is too high. All this oil business has motivated me to find out more.


George