Fragments From Floyd

Yeah, let's go get ANWR's drop of oil, and a smidge from the Florida coast, and make more oil thus cheaper gas. That's the ticket. It's all about me and mine and right now.

Meanwhile, our offshore rigs and coastal storage facilities, designed for Class 3 Hurricanes, bleed Texas Tea into the Louisianna marshes, with Rita preparing for Act Two. I'd opt for upgrading the survivability of what we already have in place, allowing gas prices to go high but stable and stay there, the money to pay down our staggering national debt and fund the next-generation technology. What in heaven's name are we leaving for our children?

Major spills (over 100,000 gallons) -- counts of total oil spills after Katrina between 44 and 65.
Bass Enterprises Production Company (Cox Bay): About 3.78 million gallons discharged, of which 960,000 gallons were recovered, 2 million gallons were contained and 982,000 gallons evaporated.

Shell (Pilot Town): About 1.05 million gallons discharged, of which about 718,000 gallons were recovered, 129,000 were contained and 105,000 gallons evaporated or *dispersed. Some 87,000 gallons have not been contained.

Chevron (Empire): About 991,000 gallons were released, of which 983,000 gallons were naturally *dispersed or evaporated, 4,000 gallons were recovered and 3,600 gallons were contained.

Murphy Oil Corporation (Meraux): About 819,000 gallons discharged, of which 305,000 were recovered, 196,000 gallons were contained and 312,000 gallons evaporated. Some 6,000 gallons were not recovered.

Bass Enterprises (Point a la Hache): About 461,000 gallons of oil discharged, of which half was contained and half evaporated.

* Dispersed? Read: broken down into microdroplets, eaten by filter-feeding oyster fry, small fish and zooplankton, or deposited in the bottom sediments where their chemicals will leach into the water of the gulf's estuarine ecosystem for decades. Dispersed does not mean disappeared or no longer a problem. It just means out of sight. They meant to tell you that. And evaporated? Where you suppose that oil is now? But hey: the solution to pollution is dilution. Right?