Well, this happens to be a trifecta of days. This is Earth Day, Good Friday and the anniversary of the worse ecological disaster in U. S. history, the BP oil spill. Now Earth Day is a day to celebrate and Good Friday for Christians is a day of blessing.
But, one year later, after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill started it is a bittersweet day indeed. In the Gulf Coast region BP claims are still rolling in from people injured or out of work from the environmental disaster.
Yesterday, BP announced that they are suing their partners in this disaster. Transocean, Halliburton (Dick Cheney anyone), and Cameron International, the maker of blowout preventer are all on the block for a collective $40 billion in damages if BP has its way.
In the first quarter 2011, BP made profits of $5.6 billion thanks to higher oil prices. But there is a little good news in all of this oil mess and that is that movie star Kevin Costner is getting involved.
Costner is teaming up with a company that builds state of the art oil skimmer barges. According to the Daily Comet, “… the barges, which are capable of processing up to 1 million gallons of oil and water per day, separating out the oil and depositing cleaned water back into the Gulf, could have prevented oil from ever reaching the coast.”
Well, he may not be dancing with wolves (or is he?), but Costner is taking action so that we have a readiness plan in the Gulf Coast should disaster strike again. Besides the oil skimmers, oil spill spotters in the form of aircraft will also be used as part of an early warning system.
So, Earth Day is also “Water Day” and it’s no time to pass over the environmental tragedies of the past, but instead remember them and take action so if they do happen again at least there will be a viable emergency plan in place this time. Earth Day is indeed a day of action.
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