This is a huge oil spill in one of the worst places it could possibly have happened. To give you an idea of scale it’s equal to 17 Exxon Valdez spills says the EPA. 193 million gallons is the amount we spill onto our streets and from there into our storm drains and into our wetlands, ponds, streams, and rivers. 193 million gallons is our oil spill, you and I.
193 million gallons is a heck of a lot of oil by any measure. That's 3,800 times as large as the recent spill on the lower Yellowstone river. Nine hundred times larger than the recent KXL spill onto some farmer’s field. The photo above is where the spill occurred, or should I say one of the places it is occurring.
The oil we put into our watersheds every year is put there by us. We pollute daily. Our cars leak oil, even our electric cars have lubrication somewhere, and even if you have no car, you still use taxis and busses and very likely aircraft to fly down to your family vacation in the Caribbean.
Single point pollution is far worse at that specific place. Despite the clean up from the crude spilled recently in that farmer’s field, I doubt his field will ever really be the same. Our water pollution into storm drains might not be as graphic as an oil soden field but it’s much more widespread and much more damaging. Imagine all the storm drains from California that lead out to the ocean. Or even the runoff from the road in the photo above. Rain is seldom in the deserts, but it happens, and all the accumulated droplets float off, into a drain and out onto that canyon in the photo.
The people who cook the food in the restaurant you eat in, the guy who comes to mow the lawn, the lady who comes to do the laundry, the people who work to make your life enjoyable and easy, they all use cars, and transportation. The mechanics who work on the aircraft that flies you to an eco vacation in Costa Rica. The truck that brings the organic berries, literally every aspect of our lives seems to spill oil.
Enough gloom and doom. What can we do? Reduce, reuse, recycle.
Above all the first one. Live simpler. Cook your own food, from easily produced vegetables and food. No need for labor intensive and expensive exotic foods. No need for gardeners and house cleaners and tutors for our kids. There is a joy that comes in doing things for ourselves. We live surrounded by some of the most beautiful places on earth, why go elsewhere. If possible replace leaky oil pans and differentials. Park over cardboard, look for leaks, fix the leaks. Always take used oil to the recycle. Use synthetic and change it less often.
Live simply.
http://www.epa.gov/region9/water/npdes/stormwater-feature.html
http://www.api.org/environment-health-and-safety/clean-water/oil-spill-prevention-and-response/~/media/93371edfb94c4b4d9c6bbc766f0c4a40.ashx http://oils.gpa.unep.org/facts/landbased-sources.htm http://www.carmel.in.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=179