BP/ Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill - Closer to home than you think

The BP/ Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a tough thing to fathom.  Although estimates of the size of the spill vary greatly and oil continues to gush into the gulf at a rate of millions of gallons per day, most credible recent estimates put the leak between 67 million and 153 million gallons of oil, covering and area that dwarfs the size of some US states.

If the oil rig explosion started in Bowling Green, the size of the spill would spread across Lexington, Louisville, Berea, Somerset, Paducah, and well into Tennessee and Indiana. 

Many of us remember the devastating 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, which dumped 11 million gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean.  The BP/ Deepwater Horizon spill has grown to 6 to 14 times that size since the leak began on April 20th.

It's so large, it can easily be seen from space, as evident by these June 19th images from NASA (click here for update NASA / Earth Observatory pictures and information)

It's the largest oil spill in the history of the United States and getting bigger every day.

As huge and profoundly damaging as the oil spill is to local fishing, the environment in the gulf, the lives of the 11 workers who died in the explosion, the economy, and damaging in so many ways we might not realize for years... there is one spill that is much larger and much less well-known,even in the state it happened in less than 10 years ago - Kentucky.

The Martin County Sludge Disaster happened in October of 2000 when a coal sludge impoundment owned by Massey Energy in Martin County, Kentucky gave way and exploded into nearby  waterways and communities, burying roads and houses and playgrounds.  

The Martin County spill was 306 million gallons of coal sludge, or almost exactly twice the current highest estimate of the BP/ Deepwater Horizon spill.

The much-deserved media attention, public scrutiny, and millions of dollars of fines to BP to mitigate the damages caused by their actions is a far cry from the quiet, behind-closed-doors investigation that lead to Massey energy's $5,600 fine and virtually no media attention in Martin County ten years ago. 

As different as the struggles in the Gulf and the struggles in Appalachia are, there are more similarities in terms of what we're up against.

The rest of the US bears some responsibility for what happened in Martin County, as our collective demand for "cheap" energy and the election of public officials who readily bow to the coal industry allowed Massey to cut corners, minimize safety, and get away with it all at the end of the day.  

And the rest of the US (including Kentucky) bears a measure of responsibility for what has happened in the Gulf for the same reasons. 

Some Eastern KY KFTC members say "Different holler, same story."

The Coal and Oil industries are profit maximizing machines.  They generally work for the highest profit margins, and along the way, they minimize everything else - worker pay, safety precautions, environmental protections, and they externalize costs any way they can to get communities and taxpayers to pay the costs of their business. 

And it's our job to stop them and hold them accountable - here at home where we live - and in solidarity with our neighbors in the Gulf when the problems are where they live.

KFTC has no official stance on the BP/ Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but as individuals we can all find a way to help make a difference - consume less, support government regulation of industries so these disasters happen less often, and help us put pressure on BP to spend every dime needed to clean up the spill and repair damages done to local industries and workers.

We're all in this together.