I talked to a buddy of mine last night, who is a personal injury attorney, about the 20 billion dollars the president got BP to agree to put in escrow. “Dude,” I said, “it’s as if the opposing counsel on one of your big cases called you up before the first motion was filed and said ‘here’s a few hundred grand to tide your client over until we figure out how much we’re going to be on the hook for.’”
My buddy actually rephrased my statement with the correct terminology, but he wholeheartedly agreed with my underlying sentiment. “Damn,” my buddy said. “That’s one hell of a settlement. Obama is really a personal injury lawyer.”
So we bantered back and forth for awhile about how ridiculous we thought the media mafia was for pretending this was any less than a stupendous accomplishment. Then my buddy said something that snapped me back to attack mode. “This kind of thing has never happened before.”
“Uh, actually this kind of thing has happened before. In fact, it's happening right now. In Nigeria.”
“Nigeria?”
“Yeah, Nigeria, the place where the U.S. gets almost 40% of the oil it uses, has had oil spills this bad practically every year for decades. The shit is ugly.”
“You know, I didn’t know that.”
“I know – because the weak ass son-of-a-bitches who waste time every night on your TV, yakking it up about bullshit instead of bring you some facts have never thought it was important. Those people in Nigeria who have looked at oily assesd water for years think Americans are spoiled to death.”
“You should write about this.”
“I will, just so I can send your ass a link.”
Over a 20-year period spanning 1976 and 1996, an average of 300 cases of oil spills per year were recorded in Nigeria's oil region. On the average, some 370,000 barrels of crude spilled into the environment each year, out of which only about 40 percent was recovered.
"The environmental effect of spilled oil is a function of time, type of oil spilled, its degree of weathering, the sedimentary characteristics of the receiving environment and the season of the year," said Chindah at a recent workshop. The immediate impact on vegetation are wilting, defoliation and loss of the productive cycle or outright death of affected plants.
On freshwater swamps, the studies showed, the effects are more devastating due to the longer water retention time. Lower plant forms, such as algae and lichens die off immediately. Animals, fish and other water organisms dependent on such ecosystems also die off sooner or later. In turn the communities in the affected areas suffer loss of livelihoods, poor health and other adverse consequences.
Science In Africa
On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.
Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake Adibawa in Bayelsa state and another in Ogoniland. "We are faced with incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of which are 40 years old," said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.
This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: "Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable."
Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it
BP, Shell and other conglomerates and oil multinationals have engaged in these egregious disregard for human lives and pristine environments, in their hurry to make profits. And many nations such as Ecuador and Nigeria have dealt with this for decades and decades and were ignored by all, but now, because this current BP disaster and catastrophe occurred on American waters, BP and other oil companies are in trepidations and are gyrating speedily and rapidly, to avoid soiled sullied public image in America, and avoid a corporate black eye and bruises from the Gulf of Mexico disaster. But why? These same oil companies have for decades foisted pollution and deaths on the peoples of Nigeria, Ecuador and other nations without remorse or regret and remedial actions! So why now? Why the difference in attitudes and actions? It is good thing that this massive spill, this disaster and catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico is actually a blessing and a wonderfully good thing in disguise, because, from now on, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill will become a point of reference or benchmark for oil spills and remediation or remedial actions
It has to be assumed as well, that from now on, conversations about death and destruction caused by oil companies, are no longer seen as merely collateral damage in hydro carbons searches and as such, merely ancillaries and extraneous matters which should not bother Americans.
This is precisely what Niger Delta in Nigeria have experienced for fifty years and the world ignored it and considered it collateral damage, an ancillary and extraneous matter in the search for hydrocarbons to power the engines of the world’s economies. But now, the world knows, the chickens have come home to roost! American Oil Spills In Gulf of Mexico and Lessons for Nigerians and Ecuadorians.
American Oil Spill – Lessons for Nigeria; by Paul Adujie
Why are oil companies forever so willing to act voluntarily to compensate and act properly in response to disasters such as the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound in Alaska or in the North Sea or currently in the Gulf of Mexico, but these same oil conglomerates are unwilling to similarly act voluntarily or even under compulsion through court judgments or orders when in the persisting environmental catastrophes in Ecuador and Nigeria, even as you read this?
American Oil Spill – Lessons for Nigeria; by Paul Adujie
What explains these selective attitudes to victims of toxic pollutions caused by the same American and European oil giants? What explains permanence in always selectively choosing to compensate Americans and Europeans; but quite unwilling to compensate Ecuadorians and Nigerians, as the oil companies remain adamant in denying their liabilities?
American Oil Spill – Lessons for Nigeria; by Paul Adujie
Judith Kimerling, a professor of law and policy at the City University of New York and author of Amazon Crude, a book about oil development in Ecuador, said: "Spills, leaks and deliberate discharges are happening in oilfields all over the world and very few people seem to care."
Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it
If this isn't the personal injury of all personal injuries, I don't know what is. THIS is why I can call the media monkeys who invade your TV every night chump change motherfuckers with impunity, because they deserve every skewering they get when we've got real life situations out here to compare and contrast corporate missions statements with their actual track record, and all they can do is carp about what idiot congressman A said about idiot congressman B in breathless wonder, or lionize one of their own brethren for squawking like a plucked chicken when they want the president to be their bitch and he refuses.
Meanwhile, halfway around the world, brown skin continues to soak in oil that seems to never stop spilling.
