The Average Man

Sunday, April 06, 2008

EPA BAILS OUT GREKA'S OIL

If you've been paying attention, you know that Greka Oil & Gas Inc. has spilled more oil around here recently than the Governator uses to fill up his Hummers. And it seems that no amount of public or private pressure has encouraged them to adequately clean up its messes. Therefore, it looks as if the EPA is going to step in and do it for them. Here's a portion of the recent Santa Maria Times article on the subject ...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking over the cleanup of an oil spill in Santa Barbara County after failed efforts by Greka Oil & Gas Inc., a company whose long record of inland oil spills could soon lead to new legislation.

Officials announced the federal takeover of the Bell lease site in Santa Maria today, saying Greka has not removed petroleum-contaminated soil in a creek in the two months since the spill.

Greka, which state officials have called California’s worst inland oil polluter, has been responsible for three spills at the site since last summer totaling more than 29,000 gallons of crude oil and toxin laden water.

“That they’re federalizing this is a big deal,” said Steve Edinger, assistant chief of the state Department of Fish and Game. “It’s basically the EPA saying ‘We need to step in and make sure the environment is taken care of and cleaned up.’ It’s not something that happens very often.”

If you're like me, you probably read the headline "EPA federalizes cleanup of oil spill at Greka site" and gave it about ten seconds of thought before moving on to more exciting news items. Well, I'm glad I gave it a another look, because -- if you'll indulge me -- I'd like to show how the Greka issue really points to a more disturbing trend. And I'd like to start by talking about another quote from the article ...

Robert Wise, who works at EPA’s Superfund division, scoffed at the idea that the company headed by Randeep Grewal does not have the funds.

“There’s really no question as to whether Randy Grewal has the money — oh yeah, he has the money,” Wise said. “The question is whether he wants to pay for this.”

Yeah, that is a good question. If not him, then who? Let's come back to that ... As I stated in a previous post, the recent government bailout of Bear Stearns really left a bad taste in my mouth. It's not that I necessarily blame the Fed for taking this action, but I am mostly disturbed by the fact that Bush would bail out a corporation while, at the same time, refusing to help the average man who is losing his home ...

"It’s not the government’s job to bail out speculators," Mr. Bush said, "or those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford."

What the Greka and Bear Stearn incidents really bring to light is a fatal flaw with the "free markets will fix everything" philosophy. These corporations (and many like them) want to have their cake and eat it too. They claim that government regulations are unnecessary and inhibit profits. But look who has to jump in and save them when things go bad. I think Bill Maher said it best on a recent episode of Real Time ...

"They (Corporations) believe in the free market for profits but they want to socialize losses."

That's exactly right. And it leads us right back to the question of who pays when these types of events occur ... We do!

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5 Comments:

At 7:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I worked at an oil and chemical plant once. They had toxic spew dripping everywhere. They had it hidden underground in places too. They had three big open pits filled with the most vile and poisonous liquids from the last five or six decades that you can imagine. The EPA finally came out and made them put a bird net over the biggest "pond". Screw the groundwater, screw the runoff, a bird net. I gave up all hope after that. It was almost twenty years ago, and that stuff is still out there. I won't go down the list of what's buried out there, too depressing.

 
At 11:14 AM, Blogger Trekking Left said...

Hey Buzz - My stepfather worked at a gas station, and he was telling me how the ground was contaminated ... and that the company knew about it and did nothing.

I suspect there is a lot of this kind of stuff going on, and it's much worse than we know.

 
At 8:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello t.l., You wrote:

I suspect there is a lot of this kind of stuff going on, and it's much worse than we know...

We don't want to know, it's bad.

 
At 6:59 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

I live next to a gas station and found out there's an epa cleanup shed on the site.

I wondered why I never saw anyone go in or out of it. I called the epa, and they told me that it is a cleanup site and the shed holds equipment that pumps air into the ground to clean up the gas spill.

I said, oh well maybe i should tell the lady that lives out back (also next to the gas station, not to eat her blueberries growing in her yard.

He told me it shouldn't affect vegetable gardens, her blueberries, etc. I hung up the phone thinking yep another government official who will never speak the truth.

There's no melemine in U.S. foods either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuZRtlj7Mhs

 
At 2:26 PM, Blogger Trekking Left said...

Yeah, I mean, how does he know?

If I were that lady, I wouldn't eat anything that grew out of the ground next to an EPA clean-up site.

 

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