400,000 gallon oil spill on the Mississippi river

One more reason we need to move away from oil - if we kill our oceans and rivers we're on a fast track to extinction. More drilling is not a solution.

It doesn't matter if they foul the water or soil. There are almost no penalties or at least none that cost enough to make them careful. Alaska is still dirty from the Exxon Valdez right under the surface. Turn over a rock and there it still is, but the fine has been lowered to an inconvenience.

United States is so good at taking care of our planet!

Wake up, America. If we do things right from now on, Im' sure there won't be any Solar or Wind leaks that poison out planet!!!

relax everyone. this will all be fixed in a week. don't change your habits. just drive to the mall and shop in effort to forget it.

These types of stories are becoming way to common.

Oil is natural.

Oil is natural?

So is nuclear waste. I wouldn't recommend dumping either into our streams and rivers.

I know...but everyone likes to go green and that's suppose to be natural...so there you have it.

Green has nothing to do with being "natural". It has to do with being clean, sustainable, and generally unobtrusive to the planets ecosystems. Oil is none of the above.

This is horrible. Just another reason we need to get away from petroleum. Can we please, please, please start pursuing other fuel sources?

Off-topic: Thing is, we haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg as far as gas prices go. When we hit peak oil (if we haven't already) gas prices will begin to increase exponentially. Which in turn is going to drive food and services up excessively as well.

Start stocking up food and water... or get yourself off the grid and start a garden. Whatever you do, do it soon.

Since, over the majority of you dont live in the south its just something you see on tv. Miss. river was already nasty enough, cancel that beach trip.

One more way we pay, besides at the pump.

This is SICK & DISGUSTING!

We are KILLING MOTHER EARTH!

Why aren't more people up in arms over this? Do they not realize the magnitude of such a spill?

If it does not move your heart, maybe you will care when it moves the MONEY out of YOUR POCKET, You can bet WE, the taxpayers will end up paying for this mess, as usual.

I am appalled at the lack of public outcry in matters such as this. When will people wake up? Once we are coughing up blood and gasping for oxygen, because of all of the pollutants in the air we breath?

Maybe when we have to pay $20.00 for a gallon of drinkable water?

APATHY reigns supreme in America. We just sit back and take the attitude that "Someone else will do it". Well guess what people. YOU are that SOMEONE ELSE!

Get of your asses and GET INVOLVED in your world. Volunteer, donate money (if you have any), become and Activist, write to Congress and the Senate. DO SOMETHING instead of just sitting back and watching the boob tube.

Yes, I am an Activist, I volunteer, I am always writing to the morons in Washington and I run a non-profit in which I take not one dime in salary. I am also living on food stamps, disability payments of $538.50 a month plus $80 in food stamps.

So if someone like myself can make a difference, so can you.......at least THINK ABOUT IT.....OK?

This was only a matter of time.

Right and now we should consider drilling on the coasts again and in the Arctic? What are the folks who support big oil, coal, and other carbon fuels going to do when the fuels are all gone? Will they then be living with the rest of us living underground and wearing masks all of the time, while eating grubs? If there are any left.

oil then chemical spills then nuclear meltdown..like Kennedy is talking about in NYC Indian Point
lots of things to look forward to..Neocons love these things...anything they can get their pincers into to suck our us dry then discard our carcasses.. F***s News..oh I just realized that was a homonym .. tells the waiting ears what to think about all of this. Al Gore is bad becasue he uses too much electricity is what I hear from my well informed sources. And they will not do anything until the Hollywood stars who are telling us things stop using big jets..that is smart.

how many more times will this happen before we open our eyes and see what we are doing to the planet we dearly love.. its just horrible

This event actually happened yesterday at a little after one in the morning. Not a word on MSM until mid-afternoon, and then only a blurb.

Why so slow to talk about something so big and local?

Business as usual. Fuck.

See this is why WE as a country need to be much more serious about green fuels and less dependent on oil. Oil spills have seemed to be a problem for far to long, I can remeber oils spills happening as a little kid and hoping that the animals would be okay. Now it is not just the animals i am worried about.

Thanks for the article Bigdog_mike. The double-hulled tanker carrying biodiesel didn't leak. ALL of the tankers should be double-hulled.

I've been keeping an eye on CNN and MSNBC the last few hours and Ogmin is correct about media coverage. This story has warranted only a mention on the bottom screen ticker. It is also being missrepresented by saying thousands of gallons spilled at the end of a collision of two tankers. Only one tanker was damaged spilling thousands of gallons of heavy crude oil. No mention of 80 miles of oil slick, no mention of water supplies being shut off to avoid mass human illness. And yes, somehow current gets the opportunity to inform thousands yet chooses to cover ;;batman, teens want to know about sex. Did however appreciate them showing the oil price fix.

And the price gasoline goes up yet again

And no corporate media coverage at all. . . Black in America, Glen Beck, Fox - all SOBs! Glen Beck is talking about using carbon scrubbing technology so we can keep driving our SUVs.

What a tragedy. I wonder about the environmental impact of this to the river.

The EPA isn't commenting on this. It's a "guarded" response.

If it were ethanol, it would have been simply diluted and washed away. Even 400,000 gallons, compared to the volume and speed of the current in the Mississippi wouldn't have been a problem for more than a few minutes at most.

Biodiesel of coarse being a vegetable oil, would float and not mix with the water. However, vegetable oil would be readily digestible by bacteria and would biodegrade within a few days at most.

Unlike petroleum. Petroleum contamination can last for years.

Another good reason we should switch to alternative fuels.

Seems noone in the media is talking about this. Please , if you see a story on this post it here so I can get some follow-up. I will call the reporters from the article Friday to get any new developments that are released. Maybe if WE give this enough attention WE can stop a media blackout.

I wish that the effect of crisis would not have such an exstinsive negativity that hurts people. In the state we are in, It seems that the vice of wrong doings will condescend even more greater if we human beings let it.

good thing Mccain decided not to change his plans about discussing oil drilling in the same river that day..lol...perfect disaster after disaster maybe we will finaly leave this planet alone...lol

Here is the CNN report.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/24/mississippi.spill/#cnn...

Interesting report. The first two paragraphs are telling us that it is not the fault of the company that owns the barge----interesting, they haven't even told us what happened yet, and they are already telling us they aren't to blame?

The oil company is going to be "nice guys" and clean up the leaking wreck and the river. So far, they have recovered 140 barrels out of 420,000. .3%, gee, that's great of ya fellas.

Interesting little blurb at the end.

---------" The spill is much smaller than the ones that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the Coast Guard estimated that more than 7 million gallons of oil were dumped into the Mississippi and nearby waterways."-----------------

Gee, that's good to know---I'm glad this one was so much smaller. Of coarse, the one's that followed Hurricane Katrina weren't their fault, there was a hurricane and there's almost never hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico so no one knew it was coming.
I cann't seem to recall any mention of that at the time. Maybe it just slippped their minds. Seven millions gallons of oil ought to make something slip.

In some way this is kind of ironic, i just can't figure out yet exactly how it is.

This story is bull shit!...they didnt dump the oil!...there was a accident between a tug and a barge...can you say SPILL boys and girls...Nazi Pelosi is the problem with the gas prices... she wont let the vote come to the floor... whats the matter Nazi Pelosi afraid the dummycrats will vote for Drilling too!
enviroMENTALIST are hurting this country!

www.americansolutions.com
McCain 08
The next President of the World!

"Dumped"? Why'd you say that? Sounded more like an accident than someone dumping all that oil; besides, both cost a lot of money!

Please EVERYONE reading/watching this go to wecansolveit.org RIGHT NOW and join Al Gore in his mission to make the USA oil/coal independant in 10 years!!!

Again?!?!?!?!?!?

A terrible accident. And they should be made to clean it up. And I am sure they will no problem. No reason to over react.

WTF!!! Do we really still want to rely on oil. This is getting out of hand. First the fish are full of Mercury and now they have a nice oily after taste.