Gulf oil wells have been leaking since 2004 hurricane

From Grist courtesy of a facebook friend:

Oil has been gushing from a group of wells south of New Orleans since a platform at the site was wiped out by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and it appears that nothing is being done to staunch or control the leaking.

Efforts to cap the ruptures appear to have been abandoned in 2011. Instead of working to clean up or stop the spill, driller Taylor Energy Company is now providing the government with daily updates about the resultant slick.

Even those updates appear to be half-baked. A long ribbon of oil can clearly be seen spilling out from the site, but Taylor Energy claims its much smaller than does NOAA.

More here.

Sigh.  It's business as usual.  Oil companies pollute and nobody gives a shit.  Indeed, oil companies lie about the amount and impact of that pollution, and are then called on those lies by a federal agency, and nobody gives a shit.  It's like BP all over again, but for years and years, instead of a few months.  I'd say that at least the feds did something about the BP spill, which they did, and that's better than nothing, I guess, but, in the end, what the feds did was to simply enable what was a massive PR damage control scheme for both BP and the overall oil industry--most of that oil is still out there in the Gulf, broken up by toxic chemicals "just like the chemicals in your dish soap at home," doing god knows what to the environment.  I wonder if BP oil has been merging Taylor oil.

This, like global warming, is the kind of thing I don't think about.  It's too depressing.  Nobody in power cares.  Nothing's going to happen to make it better.  It's all spin and damage control.  I should just get drunk.

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