BP Spills: More Like Business as Usual
Oh, great, another BP spill. This time it's the Olympic Pipeline near Everett, Washington. You know, the one that feeds fuel to SeaTac Airport? The same SeaTac where I'm probably gonna be delayed AGAIN because of this... thing.
BP "confirmed" the leak after a "sheen was observed in a drainage ditch." A sheen? That's like saying the Titanic had a "minor plumbing issue." Let's be real, people probably noticed it before BP did. Offcourse, they did. It was the public and media on Nov. 17, when ABC reported that operations at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport could be impacted due to fuel delivery issues. According to BP confirms leak in Olympic Pipeline near Everett, oil cleanup underway, cleanup is currently underway.
The Usual Song and Dance
So, what's the game plan? Shut down both pipelines, find the leak in the 20-inch one (shocker), restart the 16-inch one to keep the fuel flowing, and deploy "boom and oil recovery equipment." Boom and oil recovery equipment. Sounds like something out of a sad, dystopian cartoon.
"Additional measures will be taken if necessary to prevent product migration," says BP. If necessary? Is that a suggestion? Like, "Hey, maybe we'll clean it up, maybe we won't. Depends on how we feel that day."
Excavation work is "scheduled" to begin on Nov. 18. Scheduled. Like it's a damn dentist appointment. You know what I schedule? My outrage. It's every damn day.
And of course, no timeline for the 20-inch pipeline restart. Because why would there be? Transparency ain't BP's strong suit. They're about as transparent as a brick wall.
A Pattern of... What Was the Word?
This ain't some isolated incident, folks. This is BP. This is what they do. They leak, they "respond," they PR their way out of it, and then they do it again. It's like a never-ending cycle of corporate incompetence and environmental damage.
Remember the Deepwater Horizon? Yeah, I'm sure BP wishes we'd all forget. But some things you just can't scrub from your memory, no matter how hard you try. Or how much "boom and oil recovery equipment" you deploy.
And what about the smaller leaks, the ones that don't make national news? The slow, insidious poisoning of our planet that happens every single day? Those don't even get a sheen in a drainage ditch, just a slow sheen of corporate lies.
I saw another headline today that just made my blood boil. Something about a Beyoncé fan dying by suicide. Tragic, right? But what does that have to do with BP? Nothing, really. Except that it's another reminder of how fragile life is, how easily it can be snuffed out by forces beyond our control, whether it's a mental health crisis or a pipeline leak. Or maybe I'm just being overly dramatic. Maybe I need to lay off the caffeine. Nah.
So, What Now?
What can we even do about this? Boycott BP? Good luck with that. They're too big to fail, too ingrained in our economy. Complain to our elected officials? They're too busy taking BP's money to actually do anything.
Maybe the only thing we can do is keep shining a light on their BS, keep reminding everyone that BP isn't some benevolent energy provider, they're a corporation that puts profits over people and the planet. It's a game of inches, a constant pushback against the forces that are actively destroying our world.