Bull City
A fine fellow
Jim, I haven't see oil bubble up naturally into the environment since the intro to the "The Beverly Hillbillies" TV show. Somehow, I think it's better to keep it in the ground.
The Zombie Fleet
- Thread starter toddster
- Start date
Make no mistake, there was plenty of heartburn with Exxon. They were a corrupt, morally deficient, criminal organization thru and thru. Their moral failing was to overlook and condone a known alcoholic ship Captain and crew command a supertanker while drunk, then covering for him to protect the corporation from huge liability from their negligence. Exxon employees on the vessel and off knew exactly what was required of them and lied through their teeth every step of the way. The Exxon vessel dispatcher in the EOC - Valdez that contracted out all the fishing boats for the on the water clean up was arrested and prosecuted for fraud and requiring kickbacks from the fishermen he contracted with to work on the spill.
One of the big ironies was Exxon made more money on oil price increases the summer of the spill than they spent on the entire clean up. They recovered their entire billion dollar cost of cleanup in the first three months of the cleanup, because of oil price increases at the pumps resulting from the west coast oil shortage when vessel deliveries from the Valdez terminal to so cal oil refineries were suspended. yes they hired thousands of fish boats and crews to do the clean up. But the whole massive effort was superficial and largely ineffectual. Prince William Sound fisheries resources suffered for a decade or more after the spill, with some species showing generations of stunted growth and population collapse.
The real hit to the fishing industry in PWS was that summer’s salmon returns were the largest in history. So 30% of the fleet targeted a huge catch - huge win for the few fishermen that actually went fishing. Over The next few seasons, annual salmon returns declined biologically and economically, and never reached the pre spill levels of productivity, while I was in the industry.
The clean up effort did succeed in removing surface oil from the littoral zone (impact area) largely by driving the oil below the surface of the cobblestone beaches. Numerous times I walked a beach and dug down two or three layers of cobble to find fresh oil still permeating the substrate. That oil is largely still present throughout the 1000 miles of impacted coast line. Fresh oil weathers, dehydrates, and the volatiles evaporate, after a few weeks. But the chemical consistency remains permanently - gradually weathering into something that looks like asphalt. The oil companies and regulatory agencies pretend not to notice. Today, basically nobody cares.
BTW, there is a fair share of old stuff laying around Alaska, just like everywhere else… But that bus photo above, happens to be about the ONLY junk bus in Alaska - outside of local junk yards. It’s parked on a back country wilderness road 3 miles off the Denali Hiway just outside Healy. I’ve been all over Alaska for 30 years as a State Trooper, bush pilot, commercial fisherman, and hiker. Haven’t seen another one like it. The real story is some hillbilly boomer from the lower 48 drove it up the AlCan, and left it there, disabled, after camping for a summer. So there it sits - an off road nuisance in the middle of 2000 sq miles of wilderness. You can walk into it, or drive, from the highway with 10 minutes of effort.
One of the big ironies was Exxon made more money on oil price increases the summer of the spill than they spent on the entire clean up. They recovered their entire billion dollar cost of cleanup in the first three months of the cleanup, because of oil price increases at the pumps resulting from the west coast oil shortage when vessel deliveries from the Valdez terminal to so cal oil refineries were suspended. yes they hired thousands of fish boats and crews to do the clean up. But the whole massive effort was superficial and largely ineffectual. Prince William Sound fisheries resources suffered for a decade or more after the spill, with some species showing generations of stunted growth and population collapse.
The real hit to the fishing industry in PWS was that summer’s salmon returns were the largest in history. So 30% of the fleet targeted a huge catch - huge win for the few fishermen that actually went fishing. Over The next few seasons, annual salmon returns declined biologically and economically, and never reached the pre spill levels of productivity, while I was in the industry.
The clean up effort did succeed in removing surface oil from the littoral zone (impact area) largely by driving the oil below the surface of the cobblestone beaches. Numerous times I walked a beach and dug down two or three layers of cobble to find fresh oil still permeating the substrate. That oil is largely still present throughout the 1000 miles of impacted coast line. Fresh oil weathers, dehydrates, and the volatiles evaporate, after a few weeks. But the chemical consistency remains permanently - gradually weathering into something that looks like asphalt. The oil companies and regulatory agencies pretend not to notice. Today, basically nobody cares.
BTW, there is a fair share of old stuff laying around Alaska, just like everywhere else… But that bus photo above, happens to be about the ONLY junk bus in Alaska - outside of local junk yards. It’s parked on a back country wilderness road 3 miles off the Denali Hiway just outside Healy. I’ve been all over Alaska for 30 years as a State Trooper, bush pilot, commercial fisherman, and hiker. Haven’t seen another one like it. The real story is some hillbilly boomer from the lower 48 drove it up the AlCan, and left it there, disabled, after camping for a summer. So there it sits - an off road nuisance in the middle of 2000 sq miles of wilderness. You can walk into it, or drive, from the highway with 10 minutes of effort.
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Diarmuid
Super Anarchist
Without even trying.
Homer is particularly known for old school buses in people's yards. South central Colorado has lots, too. The big yard wart around here these days is f'ing shipping containers. Everybody seems to have one or two of those out front. Cheap shed, I guess. Don't even need a permit, since they don't have foundations.
Tacoma Mud Flats
Have star, will steer by
BTW, there is a fair share of old stuff laying around Alaska, just like everywhere else… But that bus photo above, happens to be about the ONLY junk bus in Alaska
No, there's another that's very famous.
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Fleetwood
Member
Visit the La Brea tar pits in LA, it bubbles out all over the place there.
- Thread starter
- #2,206
Actually it does so more than you might imagine. Perversely, by pumping down reservoir pressure, the oil industry has probably reduced the natural background of oil seepage. How that balances with what they leak, well, it probably isn’t good but nobody really knows. If you want to see it with your own eyes, just try taking a shortcut across the lawn to the LA County Art Museum. (Hint: Don’t do it in new white Nikes. Don’t ask me how I know…) Tar balls, large and small, from weathering of oil seeps wash up on beaches all up and down the west coast.
Ironic fun fact: Much of what we knew (pre Exxon Valdez) about biodegradation of oil in sea water came from an old 70’s study done in floating enclosures in Prince William Sound. Why? Because that’s one of those places where oil naturally seeps into the ocean.
More fun facts: “Snake Oil” medicine comes from the ancient practices of the Seneca Tribe who used to skim oil from seeps in New York and Pennsylvania. The practice was picked up by patent medicine quacks, who sold it far and wide before some of them realized that it was far more profitable as a fuel.
Jim in Halifax
Super Anarchist
While I am not an apologist for Big Oil, I did work 35 years in oil and gas and that gives me a different understanding of the issue of oil in the environment. The image of oil bubbling up from the ground is, in fact, a natural phenomena.
Of course this is not a justification for industrial disasters such as the Exxon Valdez, but it is interesting that more oil enters the Beaufort Sea from Mackenzie River seeps each year than the volume of oil leaked to Prince William Sound by the Valdez. It is indisputable that we must address carbon in the atmosphere in order to survive as a species. But it is also true that modern life as we know it would not have occurred without plentiful, cheap energy from hydrocarbons. No steel, no electricity, no air travel, no frozen snot boats, no Dacron sails...so many things we take for granted would never have come to pass. I am not ashamed of the very tiny part I had in helping to provide that source of energy. Realistically, perhaps my children’s children will be able to “leave it in the ground” (except where Mother Nature doesn’t).
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Of course they moved that one so people would stop trying to visit it.BTW, there is a fair share of old stuff laying around Alaska, just like everywhere else… But that bus photo above, happens to be about the ONLY junk bus in Alaska
No, there's another that's very famous.
Dogscout
Member
Weren't people dying while trying to visit it? It amazes me that Hollywood took a book about a loser and made a folk hero out of an idiot with no back country skills.
Cool! Free fenders!
I think maybe so - certainly straining the local rescue services. It was like a bug light for wackos.
If I recall there was a pretty dangerous river/stream crossing that was needed to access it and some people drowned or at least seriously hurt trying to get across. Being a pretty remote location it was straining the local resources to rescue people trying to find it. I think the bus is in a museum now and most likely a bit safer to visit.
well, Yes, there is a creek. It is about 6” deep. I stepped across it without getting my socks wet… nobody else died anywhere near there. The location is a nice little open grassy meadow, surrounding with low hills and loosely forested with stunted black spruce - sort of a traditional northern arboreal forest- with no natural hazards. the site where the kid died is 10 or 15 minutes walk off the Hiway, on two lane jeep trail. Remember he was living in an abondinded school bus, which some boomer drove in there. I’ve driven right up to the site in a State Trooper cruiser. The locals go there all the time for picnics, hiking and moose hunting.
The kid who died there could have walked out and hitched into the local coal mining town of Healy, 20 miles down the road, any time he wanted. medical facilities, ambulance, grocery store, the whole works. That whole story was way over dramatized. the thing was a joke, really, except fatal. The Coroner latter determined the guy ate wild hemlock, which is poisonous - but looks identical to wild celery. The hemlock paralyzed the guy and he apparently became dehydrated, starved and/or stroked out. It grows all over the meadow.
Actually, both Hemlock and celery grow in profusion all over south central Alaska, but you have to know what your doing to differentiate between the two.
this is celery. Hemlock has the same stalk, flower, and leaf structure. 2 -4’ tall. Very deceptive…
The native Athabaskan Indians used the very similar wild celery as a medicinal herb and food source. But of course one needs to learn the difference, before just charging out there and thinking you are going to live off the land.
The kid who died there could have walked out and hitched into the local coal mining town of Healy, 20 miles down the road, any time he wanted. medical facilities, ambulance, grocery store, the whole works. That whole story was way over dramatized. the thing was a joke, really, except fatal. The Coroner latter determined the guy ate wild hemlock, which is poisonous - but looks identical to wild celery. The hemlock paralyzed the guy and he apparently became dehydrated, starved and/or stroked out. It grows all over the meadow.
Actually, both Hemlock and celery grow in profusion all over south central Alaska, but you have to know what your doing to differentiate between the two.
this is celery. Hemlock has the same stalk, flower, and leaf structure. 2 -4’ tall. Very deceptive…
The native Athabaskan Indians used the very similar wild celery as a medicinal herb and food source. But of course one needs to learn the difference, before just charging out there and thinking you are going to live off the land.
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kent_island_sailor
Super Anarchist
It very much does that. If you shut down the oil wells off Santa Barbara for one example, the field pressure goes up and the natural seeps leak faster.
kent_island_sailor
Super Anarchist
Bull City
A fine fellow
Remarkable! Thanks for enlightening me.
Good point. One of my live aboard neighbors put the bouy on it to keep anyone from hitting it.
