Who wouldn't love 99.6% pure? Well, friends, today comes a report over Bloomberg News that NOAA has re-opened 99.6% of federal waters in the GOM to commercial fishing. Given the hysteria over the Transocean/Halliburton/BP/Cameron oil spill, you can bet the feds were in no hurry to reopen the Gulf if there had been the SLIGHTEST CHANCE of any adverse effect on public health. In fact, buried in the report was this little chestnut: there had been no report of an oil slick or any surface oil in the GOM since July. Since. July.
Ned wonders if the Gulf fisherpersons will be quick to rush back into the reopened areas to carry out more backbreaking labor for meager pay, or if they will try to squeeze a few months additional free leisure out of BP, claiming the waters are still "too dangerous" to go back to, or if they will simply apply for "disability" from Social Security, and take the rest of their lives off, filling up their idle hours with zydeco concerts, hootch, and crawfish-eating contests, as Ned would.
OTOH, the bluefin tuna may have been harmed by the spill, since the GOM is one of its spawning grounds and it was threatened with extinction already due to high catch "limits."
But those "killer plumes"--the ones with oil concentrations of one teaspoon in a swimming pool--? We aren't hearing much about those these days, are we?
Stay tuned.
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