Saturday, 5 April 2014
25 years later – NOTHING HAS CHANGED
Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the horrendous oil spill by the supertanker ESSO VALDEZ at Prince William Sound, Alaska.
The disaster has made worse by the late arrival of clean-up equipment and when they did eventually arrive, many of them did not work. 10 hours after ESSO Valdez ran around the captain of Esso Valdez was given a breath test for alcohol and still they found his alcohol level way over the acceptable legal limit – this leads one to the deduce that at the time of the grounding the captain (who was not on the bridge) must have been very drunk.
Since then (a quarter of a century later) the oil companies/government agencies have introduced/imposed many stringent laws and safety measures to ensure that an accident of this magnitude never happens again. This disaster killed millions of sea birds, otters and destroyed many livelihoods even today the herring have not returned. Even 25 years later patches of oil sludge can be found in coves and under rocks at once pristine beaches.
Fast forward to 2010, 20 years after the Esso Valdez, the BP operated drilling rig deepwater horizon caught fire and spilled about 210,000,000 gallons of oil into the sea. And guess what? The same debacle happened again. Clean up efforts were both delayed and tardy while all parties were more concerned with blaming each other by hiring the experts at wriggling – lawyers.
BP blamed the operator who in turn tried to push the blame to the rig’s owner who of course put the blame back on BP the charterers – while these 3 stooges were pointing fingers at each other, our world was being polluted.
Esso and BP are reputed to be world class companies and said to have great operations practices (the all have ISO and other internationally recognized ratings). They practice the best Corporate Social Responsibilities and even support green NGOs with grants/sponsorships. It’s their 20 pieces of silver to “greenwash” the world and unsuspecting gullible public.
Esso and BP are reputed to be world class companies and said to have great operations practices (the all have ISO and other internationally recognized ratings). They practice the best Corporate Social Responsibilities and even support green NGOs with grants/sponsorships. It’s their 20 pieces of silver to “greenwash” the world and unsuspecting gullible public.
I’ve got some simple advice for these talking heads – stop talking and go plant a tree. I think enough is enough and we the common people (often passive bystanders) have to take a stand and demand for a cleaner and greener environment. I can hear some of you saying that as Singaporeans we have no influences over world events.
Yes, this is correct, even the Singapore government cannot stop the regular haze that comes from Indonesia even though this has been happening for years but we can make a stand/report illegal irresponsible acts or activities. In Pasir Ris where I live I found out that a wafer plant company was pumping out toxic waste into Sungei Api-Api. I made several reports to the authorities with little tangible results so I brought this attention to my MP (who happens to be the DPM Teo Chee Hean) and now things are moving much faster.
On the path to Pasir Ris park besides Sungei Api-Api there is a healthy population of jungle fowls but I noticed that some have been disappearing. So last week, I took the time and explored the long grass area and found some traps that I promptly removed. Here are some numbers that you can save into your mobile to report illegal or unaccepted behavior.
Don’t just talk the talk – it is time to walk the walk. We are having a mangrove clean-up at Sungei Api-Api on Saturday 19th April, 8.00 am (to celebrate Earth Day, 22nd April). For details of the mangrove cleanup activity on meeting point and what to bring, please visit our previous blog post here. Come join us! Email Grace if you want to make a difference.
Cheers,
Grant W. Pereira
Mobile: 968-40-950
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