Fix it: Spill now largest manmade disaster in history

Published 12:02 am Sunday, June 6, 2010

Katrina was the hurricane everyone knew might come. It did. Almost five years later the recovery is not complete.

Similarly, the explosion and fire that sank the Deepwater Horizon floating oil production platform on April 20 and released a stream of crude into the Gulf of Mexico was also an event that everyone knew might come. The difference is that its effects could last a lot longer.

All efforts should be focused on (1) limiting the damage of oil already polluting the ocean and (2) stopping the flow at its source. This is now officially the largest manmade environmental disaster in American history. The finger-pointing, histrionics and grandstanding are sideshows.

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When the hurricane storm surge subsided, there was a lot of speculation over whether the overtopping of freshwater marshes and brackish estuaries with salt water would cripple their productivity. In the end, it turned out that nature was fairly well equipped to deal with a natural disaster — and fisheries bounced back.

This manmade disaster will be different. Even when the gaping hole 5,000 feet below the sea’s surface is sealed, there will be uncounted millions of gallons of crude still spreading over an ever-wider area. Whole communities whose livelihood depends on harvesting shrimp, oysters and crabs could be wiped out.

Yet as crucial as the seafood industry is in our state and in neighboring states, the oil business is bigger. As National Public Radio reported last week, there has been a decades-long symbiosis between the two. Rigs enhanced habitat for commercial and sports fishing. Shrimpers, crabbers and oystermen often had oilfield jobs to supplement or as the mainstay of their income.

It is these realities with which state and federal officials must deal. And with more focus and intensity than has been shown to date.