Whistleblogging?

June 8, 2006 1:11 AM

Oil spill in northern British.Columbia, nobody reports it.
posted by angrybeaver (13 comments total)

[this is bad], but typical.

Anecdote: many (many) years ago when my family owned a half-section up there in the same area, on which a MAJOR OIL COMPANY OMIGOD (and don't get me wrong, I'd be thrilled to micturate copiously on their graves) had a few wells (and paid us for the access rights), there was a way bigger spill than the one talked about here. Killed a lot of trees.

Dad took 'em to court. Took a long time, but he lost big, thanks mainly to incompetent small-town counsel. Went a bit bonkers, died of a massive heart attack not long after.

He never did listen to me when I told him to take it to the media.

Ah well.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:32 AM on June 8, 2006

They exposed workers to benzene for 19 hours? Bad bad idea as it is "a known carcinogen" and the list is even more damning
posted by elpapacito at 3:35 AM on June 8, 2006

Exposure to benzene for any length of time is a bad bad idea. I don't think there's much hope for those workers.
posted by slatternus at 6:42 AM on June 8, 2006

You know, I'm starting to think that Chavez is onto something with his state run oil company.
posted by dobie at 6:54 AM on June 8, 2006

Eponysterical.
posted by Zozo at 7:53 AM on June 8, 2006

I just reported the story to the Montreal Gazette, we'll see if it gets picked up.
posted by Vindaloo at 7:59 AM on June 8, 2006

I'm not surprised that the Canadian media hasn't picked this up... they're too busy not reporting how the budget passed through the Commons without anyone noticing. A little oil spill? Hey, look, terrorists!
posted by meringue at 8:14 AM on June 8, 2006

you've got to be kidding me. a leaky oil tank somewhere remote makes a spill a few hundred square feet across that it takes 4 college-age dudes to clean up and you expect it to get picked up by national news agencies? this is not the exxon valdez here. i'd be surprised if you couldn't fit this amount of oil into the back of a pickup truck.

i mean - illegal? sure. should get reported? sure. should make national headlines? hardly.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 9:25 AM on June 8, 2006

Benzine's not that bad, guys. Toxic and carcinogenic? yes. Should assiduously avoid any exposure? yes. Should the company have provided protection for its workers? yes. Are these guys likely to have any actual long-term effects? no.
posted by hattifattener at 11:32 AM on June 8, 2006

When an oil spill like this happens in Venezuela, who do you turn to?

I think that a state owned and run oil company is considerably more likely to take an interest in cleaning up spills than a foreign run super-mega-global-corp.
posted by dobie at 11:41 AM on June 8, 2006

I think that a state owned and run oil company is considerably more likely to take an interest in cleaning up spills than a foreign run super-mega-global-corp.

Try telling that to the people who live near the literally tens of thousands of abandoned, untreated, uncontained toxic waste sites in the former Soviet Bloc.
posted by George_Spiggott at 3:30 PM on June 8, 2006

I probably should have specifically said that I think that the province of British Columbia, which has a fairly prominent environmentalist movement, would probably better run it's natural resources than super-mega-global-corp.

Thank you for reminding me never to use general statements.
posted by dobie at 11:30 AM on June 9, 2006

This isn't an 'oil spill'; it's a botched remediation. Happens every day in Canada. Absolutely not newsworthy.
posted by solid-one-love at 10:53 AM on June 12, 2006