Rick Raw: Memories of Gulf Fishing Shattered by Gulf Oil Spill–Oil Continues to Gush Out of Uncapped Pipe now at 40 Million Gallons

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

The apocalyptic Deepwater Horizon oil spill triggered childhood memories of traveling to Cedar Key on Florida’s Gulf Coast to go fishing with friends of the family. Like Mayport, Florida, Cedar Key is an unspoiled fishing village.

I’d accompany a jolly married couple on their 20 foot fishing boat for all-day fishing excursions. I have a vivid memory of the crystal clear waters of the Gulf. It was so clear, I could see the bottom and fish swimming around. It was amazing.

That pleasant image was shattered by the on-going month-long oil gushing from the BP’s broken oil well pipe, that has gushed out an estimated at 40 million gallons and counting.

Imagining the thick toxic oil mucking up the pristine Gulf water makes me sick. The oil has now reached the bayous and wetlands in Louisiana, destroying the ecosystem for many years to come. The disaster is now eclipsing all other oil spills and become a calamity of enormous destruction.

More significantly, another disaster is playing out in the black depths between the gusher and the coast. These petroleum toxins are killing sperm whales, large jellyfish, and even plankton, which is an important food source for the whale shark and other underwater creatures.

The oil contamination of the Gulf is spreading exponentially every day that gusher is not capped. In the long run, the oil spill could mean the entire Gulf of Mexico will become a dead sea with no wild life. The Big Oil executives could care less as long as they can continue pumping oil to satisfy the rising demand liquid gold.

Yes, it’s ironic that the skyrocketing demand for oil comes at a time when more and more influential people, like Ted Turner, are demanding that we reduce our dependency on fossil fuels in favor of wind, natural gas, solar, and nuclear power. But no, it’s falling on deaf ears.

Like supply and demand fuels the avalanche of drugs flowing into the United States from Mexico and Columbia, we demand our petrol to feed our precious internal combustion engines and shun electric, hybrid, or fuel cell power for our automobiles. The big V8 is still king despite the fact that the internal combustion engine is a primitive technology.

Every time some VIP lobbies to ban the internal combustion engine to reduce emissions, the Big Oil lobby starts lining palms in Washington. Many senators and congressmen were elected with Big Oil money.

Ultimately, it’s greed that holds back progress. And, that’s why we have 4,000 oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, all with potential of being another Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Indeed, the politics of Big Oil hold back progress to eliminate the internal combustion engine.

The millions of cars running on gasoline are Big Oil’s ticket to ride with multi-billion dollar profits. They’ll fight to the death to prevent alternative energy sources from pushing Big Oil into the dark ages of declining profits.

When I sit and reminisce about those relaxing days fishing in the Gulf in that clear water, the memory quickly goes away by the dark thoughts of massive Gulf oil contamination and whole species of animals dying a horrible death.

Perhaps some good will come out of this catastrophe and wake up people to start demanding electric or fuel cell powered cars. We have long had the technology to replace the internal combustion engine with alternative power plants. So, let’s get off our asses and lobby to send Big Oil packing. We don’t need them anymore.