Slope Oil Spill Likely to Keep Growing (Major Alaskan Oil Spill)

[Clara T]

Slope oil spill likely to keep growing
21,000 GALLONS: Prudhoe Bay's sixth-largest cleanup has crews busy.

By WESLEY LOY
Anchorage Daily News

Published: March 7, 2006

At least 21,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from a leaky pipeline in the Prudhoe Bay field, according to an estimate from BP and the state.

That's the amount of oil cleanup workers recovered by 5:45 p.m. Friday, 36 hours after discovery of the leak.
The spill ranks as the sixth-largest oil spill ever on the North Slope, and the size is likely to increase once cleanup workers fully assess the extent of the spill. The largest was 38,850 gallons at the Milne Point field in 1989, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

State officials said Monday they were implementing a three-pronged plan to determine the full size of the spill. "We will determine volume estimates in a scientific and systematic fashion," said Leslie Pearson, a DEC on-scene coordinator.

Officials said Monday that about 1,260 barrels -- or nearly 53,000 gallons -- of oil and snowmelt had been recovered in cleanup operations. A BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. operator found the leaking oil and the line was blocked off and depressurized, but the source of the leak eluded investigative teams for nearly three days.

http://www.adn.com/money/story/7510267p-7421918c.html

[Pharaoh]

1. Well then it's on to anwar!

[meganmonkey]

2. The media has done a great job

at NOT reporting this :grr:

[Clara T]

3. That's their job isn't it?

Silence is the greatest tool of propaganda.

Unreported therefore in the mediated world did not happen.

[Earth_First]

4. Chalk this up as another story I'd never have heard of unless I check DU

I listen to talk radio about 4 1/2 - 6 hours a DAY, and did not hear a single word on any of the talk radio programs or top of the hour broadcasts.

Disgusting!

[northofdenali]

5. Fairbanks newspaper treats it as a minor incident.

Thank god for the Anchorage Daily News. Another mess provided by the over-the-top profits oil companies.

[anotherdrew]

6. don't they know exactly how much spilled? flow-rate sensors, logs, etc...

seems to me they would know how much oil is flowing thru these pipes

[WhiteTara]

7. So afraid to die, they will kill the whole world

RW Christians are so indoctrinated with death equating sin and Dante's inferno, that they can not accept the natural cycle of life and thereby have to destroy everything to justify their deaths. These are very little men and women with shriveled hearts and mean spirits.

Alaska was a shining jewel of ice and now these dirty men have befouled what needed to remain pristine FOR OUR SURVIVAL.

IMPEACH BUSH AND SEND THEM ALL TO THE HAGUE

[symbolman]

8. I'm in the process of writing my great american novel

and it's called "The Jesus Bolt", the story of a young man dealing drugs and driving cab in Fairbanks Alaska in the 70's, has to split town due to bikers wanting to murder him and his room mate, and heads up the the Tundra of Alaska, where he works 18 hour days in Helicopters manned by vietnam vet pilots, prospecting for Uranium by air covering every square mile north, east, and west of Fairbanks..

In the end he realizes that drugs are useless and gains spirituality and an understanding of the universe and how ecology (especially in the area of ANWR) and the environment may be all the holds the world together, I.E. the "Jesus Bolt" of the world.

A "jesus bolt" is the single bolt at the top of a helicopter that holds all the chopper blades ON, when that bolt comes out, the next person you are talking to is "jesus"..

The "jesus bolt" is a metaphor for the spiritual glue that holds everything together, the universe, the earth, the environment, and even a person, what they stand for, what makes them WHOLE (not a "christian" book in any way), and begs the question while the protaganist is cruising the Tundra, and seeing the oil fields damage in the north firsthand, that what IF the vanishing Caribou herds ARE the "Jesus Bolt" that hold the planet together - as in the old saying, "A Butterfly flaps it's wings in South America, and there's a tornado in Kansas.."

Much of the book is based on my experiences over two summers as a cab driver in Alaska during the pipeline construction, and two summers actually flying in choppers 18 hours a day in the wilds of the tundra, where the sun slides around the horizon for 24 hours a day, and throws your shadow like you are the center of a giant sundial.

I had some incredible adventures during that period of my life, and so they make it all interesting, and at the same time I had a spiritual awakening when I saw from the sky in a Hughes 500D chopper, nothing but Caribou from horizon to horizon at about 200 mph for a good 20 minutes. I could not see the ground, or the earth itself, only sky and caribou, antlers, fur, eyes, hooves, in every direction.

It is something that I want to pass on to everyone, and if they were to ever make a movie about this and showed joesixpack all of the LIFE I had seen up there, and the damage done at the Oil Camps I think it would send a wave of interest, and move the public to try and protect all we have left of the last frontier.

My purpose is to Evangelize Environmentalism, to make it a religious and spiritual experience for anyone who reads my book or if possible sees a film made of it.

I want to change the world, and as most folks here know from my flash work and work as an activist I have the ability to communicate fairly well and make people emotional with my work.

This will be the best work I have ever done, and I guarantee this will be a good read, and not like any book people have read in a long time.

Think about it when I get this puppy out there, and think about the metaphor of the "jesus bolt" - what's YOUR "jesus bolt"? What holds You Together, what part of you if taken from you will cause you to fall apart, to lose your humanity, your playfulness, your heart?

This is what I want to touch. When we make the environment SACRED then we will not lose that part of us that is SACRED, and if we do, we will become lesser beings with no true culture or future.

I have seen all this, the earth ALIVE all at once, and if you were to see it too, you would be changed forever.

It's time for everyone I can reach to KNOW THIS.

The insanity of my youth may lead to wisdom if I let it speak, and share my growth.

Like Chief Seattle said, "The Earth does not belong to US, WE belong to the Earth.."