Healing Our World: What Else Aren't We Hearing About?

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

What Else Aren't We Hearing About?

In spite of everything, I still believe
That people are really good at heart.
I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation
Consisting of confusion, misery and death.
-- Anne Frank

Our oceans are quietly being destroyed by systematic large-scale pollution from routine marine activities that rarely make the headlines. Although large oil spills command extensive media coverage - for a few days anyway - they account for only about 10 percent of the oil and fuel that ends up in our waters each year.

Oiled rocks on the shore of Prince William Sound, Alaska after the Exxon Valdez oil spill (Photo courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA))

Unbelievably, many people still dump their used engine oil down drains and sewers. Five quarts of oil can contaminate millions of gallons of fresh or ocean water. Nearly 363 million gallons of this oil makes its way to our waterways each year. Also, a city of five million generates enough toxic runoff each year to equal a major oil tanker spill.

Over 137 million gallons of oil enters our oceans and other waterways from oily bilge water and other ship operations. Thirty-seven million gallons of oil spills each year from oil tankers and another 15 million spill from off shore oil rig operations.

California hopes to avoid oil spills like this 1979 oil well blowout in Bay of Campeche, Mexico (Photo courtesy NOAA)

In October 1999, 112,000 gallons of jet fuel spilled into Ensenada Honda Harbor in Puerto Rico. Also in that same month, 12,000 gallons of jet fuel spilled from 10 derailed railroad cars in Talkeetna, Alaska.

Worldwide, this highly toxic substance is mishandled and indiscriminately allowed to contaminate the environment and human health. Children can be found carrying water in discarded jet fuel containers in rural Africa, condemning their family to toxic poisoning.

Young African girl carries drinking water in an old fuel container. (Photo courtesy Air Care International)

Remarkably, technologies to clean up fuel and oil spills are quite primitive. Absorbent pads floating on the water are the most common cleanup approach used, but this captures only a small fraction of the toxic material spilled. Some evaporates, becoming an air pollutant while some of it coats beaches and wildlife.

Countless animals slowly die from these spills. Fish are unable to breathe or are poisoned. Animals such as the sea otter, that rely on their fur to keep them warm, die from ingesting the oil as they desperately attempt to clean their fur. Millions of oil covered birds die as they loose their ability to fly or to keep warm.

Our ground water, drinking water and fish resources become contaminated as well.

Each day, millions and millions of boaters spill fuel into our oceans and waterways when they fill their fuel tanks. Those few drops, few cups or few gallons will be rationalized away as the boater claims, "It’s only a little fuel - how can that hurt anyone?"

Oil-Only PIG® Absorbent Booms five inch diameter (Photo courtesy newpig.com )

Sadly, our government has developed its rules and standards to minimize effects on business interests and has designed regulatory procedures that view the environment as a secondary consideration.

More than ever before in our history, we as individuals must take responsibility for our actions and determine for ourselves what is best for the health of our children and our planet. We must use the native intuition and common sense we all have.

Boaters must take the leadership in regulating their own actions. Those who use boats for their business have no excuse - they must take this responsibility seriously.

Bird coated with oil from a Persian Gulf spill (Photo courtesy American School of Kuwait)

All people who apply for a boating license, either for business or pleasure, should have to take a visualization test to make sure they can see that one gallon of spilled fuel from each of the millions of boaters means millions of gallons of spilled fuel into our waterways each day.

Citizens must act as enforcement agents as well. If you are taking a stroll at your local marina and see a slick of something on the water, call the authorities. If you see a boater refueling and spilling fuel, report it.

No one is going to tell us to stop and do the right thing. That is up to us. In fact, it always has been.

RESOURCES

1. If you see a spill of any kind, you can use the form at http://www.cmc-ocean.org/mdio/report.php3 to record it and report it.

2. Current oil spill recovery technology is summarized in a student report at http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/global/sensem/S98/Aynechi/Oil.html

3. Find the data for much of the statistics mentioned above at http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/peril_oil_pollution.html

4. See summaries of spill incidents from 1999 at http://www.uscg.mil/hq/commandcenter/nrc/insum.htm

5. See a report on pressures on our coastal resources at http://state_of_coast.noaa.gov/siteindex/html/default.html

6. See images of oil spills from space at this NASA website.

7. Find out who your elected representatives are and e-mail them. Demand that there be zero tolerance for fuel and oil spills. Demand that new technologies be funded and that regulations and enforcement be strengthened. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html or you can search by state at http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html. You can also find your representatives at http://congress.nw.dc.us/innovate/index.html

{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and the Environmental Education Programs Manger and the Manager of Discovery Park for the City of Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation. He can be found in his new home in Seattle, surrounded by thousands of boats spilling toxins into the beautiful waters every day. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his web site at www.healingourworld.com}