September 14, 2010

  • Romeoville Oil Fucking Spill Day 5..........That's Right I Said Romeoville Oil Fucking Spill!

    Normally my town is not the type of town that does things to be "in", like a high school student sniffing glue to fit in with the popular kids. My town is filled with people stuck in the 1980s. And just because most of Illinois is Democratic, it's not the same in the 'Ville, as there are a lot of Republicans here. We are so far behind the times that I think next year we will finally start wearing M.C. Hammer parachute pants! But, all of a sudden, Romeoville has time warped into 2010! And not in a good way either.

    Thursday night I was at a bar with some friends when we saw a news story on the tv about an oil spill in my home town of Romeoville. Of course, being in a bar we couldn't hear the tv, but found out soon enough that a pipeline in Romeoville burst and you guessed it, oil started gushing out. Although as of yesterday they had stopped the leak, it wasn't before 256,000 gallons had spilled out. Oh sure, it's no BP gulf disaster, but it still really shocking to think that it can happen in my town. Okay, so I shouldn't be too shocked seeing as there is an oil refinery not more than a mile or so from my house, but still, I never expected there to be a leak here. Okay, so the very same oil refinery exploded some 26 years ago (I still have vivid memories of it, even though I was a kid) caused the second worse oil refinery disaster in the history of the country. But, I still never thought this could happen.

    Now I should clarify that it not like the whole town is awash in oil and we are paddling our way in and out of town, we aren't, it's just a little oil that comes up to our ankles. So our shoes get a little black, who cares? Actually, it is in a part of town that I never go to and therefore I haven't seen or smelled it. But that doesn't mean I'm not angry about it, after all the leak moved quickly enough to reach a drainage ditch and nearby pond that feeds water into the Des Plaines River. I do believe that is where we get our water from, however I'm not entirely positive. The good news is that Romeoville's water has been so bad for years that I've been drinking bottle water for over a decade. And since I'm already stinky and dirty, it hasn't affected my bath water.

    As somebody who cares deeply for the environment, what I'm about to copy and paste from an article in the Chicago Tribune angers and saddens me. Oil companies have reported 117 spills and racked up nearly $60 million in property damages in Illinois since 2000, records show, sending more than a million gallons of oil and other hazardous liquids into the environment. Cleanup and repair efforts have resulted in two deaths and 28 injuries in the past two decades, according to statistics from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. And this has a very good chance of happening again and again, turns out that only six states have more pipeline underground than Illinois. What's worse is that the county I live in, Will County, has more underground pipeline than any other county in Illinois.

    Boy, it sure is good that Republicans don't believe in regulating companies, ain't it, after all we wouldn't want these companies to be responsible for their actions now would we?