When it comes to “land farming” an oil spill, the figurative meets the literal: It’s a coverup.
The idea is simple: You put fresh dirt or sand on top of the oil…so it’s gone to the casual passerby. There’s an argument that you can process the dirt to the point where chemicals break down. But that’s not what’s happening with the land farming in the Gulf. Instead, that argument is used as a pretext for burying the oil and hoping nobody will notice.
We’re getting reports of land farming from around the Gulf. And it’s worth noting that EPA agents on Florida’s Walton County beaches this week were digging holes and finding oil product buried as deep as 14 inches under the sand. Trust me, this is going to be one of the big stories as British Petroleum continues to flee the region and its responsibilities. We’ll be finding oil on beaches down here for years to come…in places we never thought it was.
Read more about the Walton County discovery here: http://www.waltonsun.com/news/walton-86108-newsherald-county-protection.html
Here’s a quick video overview of land farming and its dangers:
© Smith Stag, LLC 2010 – All Rights Reserved
