Each year, during the annual New York City marathon, approximately 30,000 athletes cross the Pulaski Bridge. The Pulaski Bridge not only marks the halfway point of the marathon, it is also the most polluted and noxious waterway in the United States. The marathon walkers and runners will most likely notice the smell radiating up from the waters below, most will not know the name of the tributary they cross. In fact, many people do not realize that this waterway even exists.

This is Newton Creek – A murky estuary stretching some three and a half industrialized miles, which borders Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Maspeth, Queens. The shoreline of Newton Creek was once decorated with the mansions of the area’s wealthiest and was considered the perfect spot for shipbuilders. After the mansions came industries and refineries. What’s left over is now a toxic mix of raw sewage, floating oil from the nearby refineries as well as other noxious contaminates that bubble to the surface each time it rains.

For Newton Creek, February 12, 1933 marked the final voyage of the ferry that connected Greenpoint to Manhattan. With this last voyage went what many call the “glory days” of Newton Creek. While the ferry did not survive the Great Depression, the oil refineries continued to thrive.

Riverkeeper, an advocacy group that monitors the Hudson River, its tributaries as well as the watershed of New York City, is a watchdog group focused on tracking down and stopping polluters. Beginning in 1966, Riverkeeper has been working to improve, preserve and protect the waterways in and around New York.

According to one of Riverkeeper’s environmental reports, Newton Creek “fails to meet even the most basic goals of the 1972 Clean Water Act. Nearly the entire stretch of the Creek is heavily industrialized, there is virtually no public access and water-dependent industries have stagnated. A boat trip up the creek is a journey into the heart of darkness, with the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline as a reminder of its real world locale.”

Photo Credit: Santino DR

About every two weeks, Riverkeeper conducts river patrols, including the Hudson and East Rivers. During these patrols, workers take samples from the murky water. Samples taken from the waters around the ExxonMobil refinery have been determined to be almost pure oil. Riverkeeper takes samples from various places along Newton Creek – by the Pulaski, Greenpoint Avenue and Kosciuszko bridges as well as by the Peerless refinery.

Although samples taken from the East River, at the point where Newton Creek and the river meet, are considered the cleanest, layers of floating oil can still be found. At this point in the river, there is still enough life-sustaining oxygen, which allows fish to survive. Like us, fish require sufficient oxygen to thrive, and, it is important to note, that at various spots along New York’s Newton Creek, there is zero oxygen.

The reason there is no oxygen present at different locations along the Creek is that there is no source of fresh, oxygenated water. No exchange of water can take place because Newton Creek is simply too far away from East River. In fact, the only watery substance that flows into the Creek originates from sewage pipes. In other words, the water of Newton Creek is overrun with toxic bacteria.

At some point in the future, the State Department of Environmental Conservation plans to create a system that will oxygenate the Creek’s water. With those plans still in the very distant future, some of New York City’s municipal raw sewage also seeps into Newton Creek. Combine this sewage with the already highly contaminated and impure water and you will find no place capable of sustaining life.

Occasionally and as expected, fish are pushed up stream by strong waves and powerful winds. They do not survive long. When birds land on the water and attempt to drink or feed, they swallow the tainted water, which poisons the birds. The birds, in turn, innocently spread the contamination. With the toxic waste adhering to their bodies and wings, wherever the birds fly next will receive a dose of the same contamination found in Newton Creek.

TOXIC FUMES AT GREENPOINT

Polluted water is not the only health hazard found at Newton Creek. When the rain comes, water is absorbed deep into the already tainted ground. As it seeps deeper and deeper, it eventually reaches and further contaminates the groundwater. The groundwater in Greenpoint, Brooklyn is deemed useless.

Photo Credit: Santino DR

The fumes and vapors from raw sewage and oil spills are not only horrible to smell, they also present another potential health hazard. Those who work in local factories as well as area residents and business owners must inhale the potentially dangerous fumes. Interestingly, no research has been done to determine the composition of the fumes at Newton Creek.

It appears that nobody in authority wants to reveal what contaminates are really in the water and the vapors that engulf the Creek. Newton Creek’s pollution problems, and there are many, fall under the jurisdiction of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). Apparently, either they don’t know or they aren’t talking.

The problem will likely remain until there are more defined answers and until the nature of all contaminates, including their irresponsible sources, are revealed.

A WORM IN THE BIG APPLE

It seems odd that the most highly contaminated tributary in the United States is in the heart of New York City. Newton Creek’s dirty little secret remained undetected for so long because not many people actually knew about it. In fact, even Riverkeeper found out about the Creek by accident.

Many lower income families rely on fish taken from the East River for food. In an attempt to find the most popular fishing spot and get the City Council to erect warning signs, Riverkeeper workers were patrolling the shore of East River. The goal was to stop people from eating the tainted fish, which are full of poisonous contaminates. It was during this patrol that the Riverkeeper patrol stumbled onto Newton Creek.

A LESSON IN HISTORY

Big industries have long been blamed for the pollution of Newton Creek. Government regulations prohibiting companies along Newton Creek from ignorantly dumping vast amounts of industrial wastes right in the Creek were not implemented until 1972.

The pollution of Newton Creek actually commenced some 150 years after the first European settlers reached Maspeth, New York in 1642. The eastern edge of Maspeth abuts Newton Creek and was developed into a highly industrial and commercial area. After the Revolutionary War, New York was developing economically and the business of trade was gaining strength along Newton Creek. There were agriculture fields, residential homes and a growing number of factories and shops where rope and various chemical products were manufactured.

The start of the 19th century marked a high point in the shipbuilding industry. Beginning in the 1840s and continuing throughout the Civil War, hundreds of ships were brought to life on Newton Creek. It was not until the Industrial Revolution that the shipbuilding industry began to slow down.

Shipbuilding was replaced by new oil refineries and various textile industries. The new booming industries made barge and ship traffic on Newton Creek extremely heavy. The only other river in America more congested and busy was the Mississippi.

As early as 1889, the New York Times began writing of Newton Creek’s squalor. A committee of concerned New Yorkers created the Brooklyn’s Smelling Committee in 1891. They called the Creek the most foul-smelling area in the entire city. Brooklyn’s Smelling Committee recorded that there were “piles of rotten meat from local butchers.” This was just the beginning.

Newton Creek’s pollution crisis intensified with the increasing number of refineries. The first kerosene refinery was started in 1854, and, by the end of the 19th century, the country’s highest concentration of industrial factories could be found in Long Island City. The state’s population boomed as thousands moved to communities along Newton Creek to find jobs. They found work in sugar mills, cooperages, textile factories and, of course, the refineries.

By 1880, there were already 50 refineries on Long Island City’s side of Newton Creek. Each of these refineries only compounded the already declining condition of the water. Each refinery is said to have poured roughly 30,000 gallons of toxic material in the Creek. Disaster was imminent.

Starting at some point in the 1940s, oil began spilling into the sewage pipes along Newton Creek. Eventually, the spilled covered a span of nine acres. On October 5, 1950, an explosion was prompted by the oily mess. Windows of at least 500 area residents and businesses were shattered and some 25 sewer covers flew as high as three stories in the air.

The massive explosion caused 17 million gallons of oil to spill into the earth. This enlarged the size of the entire spill to cover 55 acres. The size of Newton Creek’s spill continued to grow and is now said to be six times larger than that of Alaska’s legendary Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989.

Oil first started leaking into ground water in the Greenpoint area during the beginning of the 20th century. This began after, and as a result of, the arrival of Standard Oil, ExxonMobil and BP Amoco to Newton Creek. Of course, the explosion intensified the already toxic situation.

Amazingly, there has been very little effective cleanup action. Even with the obvious floating oil covering the Creek’s surface and black, shiny grease along the shoreline, nothing substantial was ever done to remedy the problem. However, from the beginning of this sickening problem, the undisputable stench of oil permeated Newton Creek’s neighborhoods giving little question about the murky substance in the water and along the shoreline.

City officials first learned of the oil spill in 1950, when the powerful Greenpoint explosion erupted. As it happened, gasoline seeped into a sewer and somehow was ignited. It took almost 30 additional years for the problem to be rediscovered.

It was in 1978. A Coast Guard pilot on a routine patrol just happened to notice the vast oil spill. Further investigation revealed that this spill was actually part of a massive oil spill, which originated from oil tanks coming directly from an Exxon facility.

According to Riverkeeper, because ExxonMobil ignored the oil spill, the Creek’s environmental problems aggressively expanded. To date, the Newton Creek spill extends from Greenpoint Avenue to beyond the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The oily slime that plagues the Creek measures anywhere between 30 centimeters to 3 meters thick.

TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

Finally, in 1990, the corporations responsible for and that owned the polluted sites were ordered to start the cleanup process. The cleanup process, however, was and still is not very successful. If clean up would have been ordered shortly after the explosion in 1950, maybe Newton Creek could have been salvaged. But, as it turned out, very little was done to improve the Creek’s condition for 40 years.

While not everyone knew about the spill, those who did know about the disaster seemed not to care. The huge corporations responsible were in the business of making money by selling millions of gallons of oil yearly. They showed little concern for the poor, immigrant neighborhoods along Newton Creek.

To date, among the companies deemed responsible for the cleanup are PB Products North America (previously Amoco Oil Company) and ExxonMobil. These corporations were ordered to use pumping stations, which collect water and separate out the oil. The oil is then placed in barrels and the supposed “free” product is eventually sent to refineries in New Jersey. This is a very slow-moving process.

It was not until 1990 that ExxonMobil signed a consent order from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to clean up the mess. Unfortunately, ExxonMobil repeatedly made and broke promises and ignored legal orders to clean up their mess at Newton Creek.

Riverkeeper continues a legal battle with ExxonMobil and the other responsible corporations. Along with Exxon and PB Products North America (previously Amoco Oil Company) are Texaco (previously Paragon Oil) and Peerless Importers. Each corporation is accused of negligently storing, transporting and/or disposing of oil, petroleum, petroleum products, oil additives, petroleum additives, petroleum product additives, gasoline, gasoline additives, such as lead, benzene, toluene, xylene, kerosene, refinery oil, solvents, and other hazardous chemicals.

As a result of their actions (or inactions), these corporations have caused devastating pollution along the Newton Creek shoreline. They have also caused damage to an estimated 230 homes and 80 businesses. Local Newton Creek residents and business owners are still being affected by contaminated soil, water pollution and air pollutants.

Riverkeeper still patrols Newton Creek by helicopter and by boat. Even now, with the level of the Creek’s contamination well known and more highly publicized, many companies still blatantly dump hazardous, toxic chemicals into Newton Creek.

In addition to the oil spill, Empire Transit Mix, a concrete manufacturer in Brooklyn, pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally dumping concrete slurry into the creek. Riverkeeper also sued Maspeth Concrete Loading for similarly dumping concrete, which changes the pH balance of water and kills fish.

Riverkeeper continues to fight big corporations who pollute Newton Creek. As recently as January 25, 2007, they began a new legal fight with ExxonMobil. This most recent case of blatant pollution alleges that ExxonMobil is discharging toxic chemicals into Newtown Creek from two pipes without required federal Clean Water Act permits.

It is obvious that much more needs to be done to prevent big companies from polluting the environment time and time again.

Like so many African cities, Brazzaville’s history is one of imperialism and being dominated by European culture. The Portugese controlled the area as part of the slave trade until the late nineteenth century. The area then came under the influence of the French, who made it a protectorate and renamed it Middle Congo. Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza negotiated a treaty with King Teke on behalf of the French and the village of Nkuna was re-named in Brazza’s honour. It became the capital and the central city in French Equatorial Africa.

In 1944, as French influence in the region ebbed and Free French forces defeated the forces from France, Charles DeGaulle agreed to a meeting between leaders of French colonies in Africa, Free French political leaders, and French colonialists. The meeting, known as the Brazzaville Conference, resulted in the Brazzaville Declaration.

That declaration granted unprecedented rights to Africans living in French Equatorial Africa, including a statement that the French Empire would remain united; semi-autonomous assemblies, a form of self-government, would represent each colony; citizens colonies would have the same rights as French citizens. And be allowed to vote in French parliamentary elections; and the native population would be eligible for employment in the French colonial public service. The Brazzaville Declaration also began the establishment of economic reforms to reduce the worst effects of the exploitative system that had developed along with French colonialism.

While the results of the Brazzaville Declaration are not as positive as the declaration makes them sound, and western paternalism continues in the region to this day, they marked a major turning point in both French imperialism in Africa and African history.

In 1946, DeGaulle granted full French citizenship to the members of all colonies in French Equatorial Africa as recognition of the important role the area had played during World War Two. In 1959 Congo became fully autonomous and in 1960 it gained full independence. Three years later a period of unrest centred around the labour movement removed the president. A civilian government was then instituted and lasted until 1968.

In 1968 a military coup overthrew the government and over two decades of one-party rule, leaning heavily to Marxist-Leninist policy followed. The Soviet Union played heavily in the politics of the region until its collapse.

In the early 1990′s multi-party rule was established, but the 1993 elections were marked by violence and the 1997 elections brought a four month civil conflict that destroyed much of the capital of Brazzaville. In 1998, unrest broke out again and the Brazzaville-Pointe Noire railroad, which was economically crucial to the country and especially to the capital of Brazzaville. Many civilians were killed during the unrest and refugees from the fighting reached crisis levels. In 1999 the Congolese government began meeting with several rebel groups that had formed.

In the early 2000′s, former president Lissouba and ex-Prime Minister Kolelas were tried for treason in absentia. In 2002 the people of Congo ratified a new constitution and the country began repairing itself. In 2003, southern rebel groups agreed to a final peace accord.

Brazzaville, and the rest of the Republic of Congo, has been relatively peaceful since the ratification of the constitution, but the peace is tenuous at best. The problem of un-repatriated refugees represents a humanitarian crisis and is the source of some unrest.

In 2003, a survey found Brazzaville the worst city in the world in which to live. It finished 215 out of 215 candidate cities, below Baghdad which placed 213. Nearby Pointe Noire finished 212 in the survey which, according to the BBC, “was based on an evaluation of 39 quality of life criteria for each city including political, social, economic and environmental factors, personal safety and health, education, transport and other public services.”

Parasol in Pointe Noire. Photo credit: FredR

A related survey done around the same time found Brazzaville to be the sixth most dangerous city, which is not surprising since it is the capital of a country that has an estimated 40,000 weapons in the hands of civilians. The population of the country is under 4 million and half of that population is under 15 years of age, making that amount of weaponry in the hands of civilians a major threat to stability.

AIDS is a major killer in Africa, and the Republic of Congo is no exception. The pandemic has had devastating effects on young adults, reducing the median age of the population to 16 years old. Because it affects the immune system, those suffering from AIDS are more likely to contract and be unable to fight off other diseases. Malaria and tuberculosis are rampant in and around Brazzaville.

A lack of proper infrastructure for sewage and trash removal has left Brazzaville with some serious health issues. Water borne diseases are common in children and among adults. Diarrheal disease are common and fresh drinking water is often unavailable, which further spreads the illness.

AIDS and other illness has lead to a shortage of people of working age. In a major city like Brazzaville, that leaves infrastructure crumbling, schools and hospitals short-staffed. It has greatly increased the stresses on systems that were already struggling from years of internal strife. Children are often orphaned and in the poorest sections of the city, it is not unusual to see children as young as eight trying to raise their younger siblings or look after their sick parents.

Nor is the AIDs pandemic the only major issue facing the population of Brazzaville. The Republic of Congo depends heavily on oil money to keep its economy rolling. It took out massive loans in the past, using oil production as collateral, to back the loans. While the current high oil prices are providing somewhat of an economic boom, Congolese oil fields are beginning to run out. When the oil ceases to flow the economy will be cut by more than half.

Next to oil, logging is the second largest portion on the economy. That is threatened both by global warming which, combined with wood used for cooking fuel, and tracts of land being cleared for agriculture, is causing desertification. The excess heat now related to climate change by many experts has caused a seasonal shift that has changed the timing and amount of rains, making agriculture difficult. The agricultural subsidy regimes of the US and European Union have also made it uneconomical for farmers to grow food crops while pushing the price of food up for those living in cities such as Brazzaville.

The poverty, disease and hunger, combined with the easy availability of weapons, a history soaked in the blood of colonialism and unrest in neighbouring countries, could easily lead to further political instability. That would drag the Republic of Congo and the city of Brazzaville back into the cycle of violence that it has tried for so long to escape.

Karimov’s human rights record is abysmal. He has been known to boil political dissenters alive. He has repressed religious rights, ostensibly as part of the war on terror. When it comes to human rights in Uzbekistan, there aren’t any. Karimov has detained human rights workers and ordered his troops to fire into crowds of demonstrators. Political opponents end up in prison and are tortured or killed.

The violent restriction of human rights grows from the paranoia so commonly seen among totalitarian dictators. Karimov even banned the playing of billiards because he was afraid that people would talk about politics while playing. While that may sound humourous, it goes a long way towards demonstrating the depth of Karimov’s paranoia.

Despite all of the well-documented problems in Uzbekistan over a decade of Karimov’s rule, the United States and allies such as Britain welcomed Karimov into the war against terror. In exchange for military aid, the US received the use of the Karshi-Khanabad air base and facilities for 800 US troops. The Bush administration ignored criticism of having such a brutal regime as an ally until last year.

Even with the criticism of their relationship with Karimov, a relationship that echoed the Reagan administration’s relationship with Saddam Hussein, The US maintained a relationship with Uzbekistan while choosing to ignore Karimov’s abuses in exchange for his cooperation. While the need for an ally in the war on terror is often cited, Uzbekistan is strategically located between Russia and China and has sizable natural gas reserves, estimated in 2005 to be 1.875 trillion cubic meters, and a small amount of oil. Considering the strategic importance of energy in the area, relations with Uzbekistan could have more to do with natural gas reserves than the war on terror.

The relationship between Uzbekistan and the US, as well the European Union did finally begin to sour in 2005, however. A small armed uprising in the province of Andizhan was followed by a large, peaceful demonstration. Reports vary, and there may or may not have been a few armed militants among the protestors, but the Uzbek military responded to the demonstration by firing into the crowd. The true extent of the casualties is not known, but human rights experts have responded to the incident as being on a par with the Tiananmen Square massacre. The government crackdown on political opponents and human rights advocates since the massacre is brutal and repressive, with torture, disappearances, and politically-motivated murder becoming commonplace.

After the incident in Andizhan, pressure began to grow in the EU for sanctions to be put in place against Uzbekistan and the accounts of officials in the Karimov regime frozen, although no comprehensive action was taken. There was little reaction in the United States, with aid ( $91.6 million in 2005) continuing to flow, but some harsh words about human rights from the Bush administration caused Karimov to kick the US military out of the Karshi-Khanabad air base. Since that time, both Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) and Congressman Christopher Smith (R-New Jersey) have introduced bills calling for an end to all aid to Uzbekistan and the freezing of foreign accounts and travel restrictions for Uzbek officials.

Karimov is now currying favour with Russia and China, who have far less interest in human rights abuses than western countries claim to have, and are even more likely to ignore, or partake in, gross abuses to gain access to energy reserves or strategic military advantage.

The spectre of further human rights abuses and the poverty that is so pervasive under totalitarian regimes points to an unhappy future for the people of Uzbekistan, but making things worse is trying to eke out a living in a country that has suffered serious environmental damage.

During the Soviet era the excessive use herbicides, pesticides, defoliants, and other chemicals combined with the diversion of water for irrigation from two major rivers devastated the environment. The diversion of the Amu Darya and Syrdariya Rivers has caused the Aral Sea, once the world’s fourth largest inland body of fresh water, to shrink in size. The Aral Sea is now less than half the size it was in the 1960s, holding only about one third of the water it once did.

Widespread irrigation has contaminated what water still exists with agricultural chemicals. Naturally occurring soil salt, has become concentrated from excessive irrigation. The dried lake bed where large portions of the Aral Sea used to be now produces dust storms full of agricultural and industrial chemicals which, combined with the salt, blow for up to 800 miles. The contaminated dust in these storms kills plant life, causing desrtification.

The environmental devastation continues. Although Uzbekistan is a signatory to several environmental treaties, including clean air and water agreements and the Kyoto protocol, less than half of the smokestacks in the country have filtration devices. The most common method of chemical disposal remains dumping it into a rudimentary sewer system if one exists in the area.. Only about 50% of urban areas and 25% of rural villages have sewers in Afghanistan, so chemicals are often just dumped in the nearest ditch or river.

The result is that most of the underground water supplies are contaminated and the rivers and ditches are basically open sewers. Water-borne illness is common and chemical-related disease is not unusual. Respiratory illness is common in both rural and urban areas.

All indications are that the environmental situation will continue to worsen under the reign of Islam Karimov. Those who speak out against it risk imprisonment, torture, and death. Complaints from international agencies have little impact on the Karimov regime and local activists are silenced, so the environmental issues worsen with the human rights abuses.

There is no end in sight to the suffering of the people of Uzbekistan. The west failed to help them for strategic and economic reasons. Russia and China have shown even less of a compunction to use their influence to better human rights or environmental conditions. Unless some way is found to intervene, Uzbekistan will continue to be one of the worst places on earth in the foreseeable future.

“The Buncefield depot is a major distribution terminal operated by Total and part-owned by Texaco, storing oil, petrol as well as kerosene which supplies airports across the region, including Heathrow and Luton.

The country’s fifth largest fuel distribution depot, it is also used by BP, Shell and British Pipeline.”

“The fire chief described the incident at the Buncefield fuel depot near Hemel Hempstead, after 0600 GMT, as possibly the largest in peacetime Europe.”

Photo by Gridlock


Photo by innkue

“The fire, which police believe was an accident, could burn for another day.”

Photo by Today is a good day

“About 2,000 people living near the site have been evacuated, while police have advised others to keep their windows and doors closed because of fumes”

“290 people have gone to a leisure centre while 50 others have been offered bed and breakfast accommodation.”

Photo by Today is a good day

“Many houses have been damaged, with some reporting feeling effects from the explosion as far away as Oxfordshire – while it was heard in a number of counties and even France and the Netherlands.”

Photo by Gridlock

BBC Story
More photos: Hemel Hempstead And Beyond Photo Pool

The City of LA loves bicyclists, officially, and tries to do what it can for them. But the great congested mass of benzene-addled motorheads does not. And the infrastructural legacy that seven decades of pandering to the personal automobile at all costs has left most of the city grimly cold to human life in general, and to bicyclists in particular.


It is stunning, really, that in a city that’s mostly flat, warm, and dry, so few people ride bicycles at all, whether for utility or pleasure. There are fifteen million plus people in LA; there are maybe 1/20th that number in cold, rainy, hilly San Francisco.

Yet there are bicycles around you almost anywhere in SF, whereas it’s unusual to see one anywhere in most parts of LA, except as a prop. Ditto Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York—and let’s not even bring up Amsterdam or Tokyo, all cold, wet burgs half the time that are buzzing with bikes.

What is it that makes LA a strong contender for the label of the World’s Least Bicycle-Friendly City?

Sprawl is a good place to start, especially in the city that defined the term. Distances in Los Angeles are vast in the conurbation Dorothy Parker once described as “seventy suburbs in search of a city.” Commutes of ten to twenty miles are not uncommon, and some folks drive in to work from distant corners of adjacent counties, sitting in their cars for one to two hours each way each day.

That this is a collective madness that generates individual psychopathy is undeniable; that the galactic scatter of workplace and domicile mitigates against bicycle commuting for many people is self-evident.

The concentration of retail and services into gigantic malls, and concomitant decimation of neighborhood commerce (literally illegal in most parts of the city) makes it difficult to bike or stroll to a nearby bakery, greengrocer, shoemaker, hardware store, or what have you for a simple purchase, because such places simply do not exist except in the luckier, historic districts.

Since each trip involves an expedition, the tendency is to bunch them together so that one braves the intimidating expanses of mall parking as infrequently as possible, loading up the car to the brim with whatever goods one feels compelled to buy that week. Mall culture and bulk buying are antithetical to bicycling, not to mention to civility itself.

This exaggerated dependence on the motorcar coerces the denizens of this automotive dystopia into spending endless hours staring at the bumper ahead of them on freeways, streets, and parking lots, leading the citizenry to clamor for -— you guessed it! -— more freeways, streets, and parking lots.

For which you tear down yet more local stores and cozy neighborhoods, only to replace them with more malls and bedroom communities even farther apart from each other and the central city, thereby perpetuating the very syndrome one thought to escape thereby, in a slow but inexorable feedback loop.

The result is wide, eternally crowded asphalt planes that don’t even deserve the name of “streets,” fourteen lanes filled with cars from curb to curb and horizon to horizon, with nothing to look at but the cinderblock soundwalls demarcating malls, industrial parks, and the occasional cloistered pink stucco ghetto.

It creates a place that no one wants to be in, especially not on a bicycle.

The motorist’s salvation was to be the freeway, which simply replicated the conditions of the streets with added horrors, such as the practice of lowering the road into a trench from which escape is possible only at long intervals of sometimes several miles between off-ramps.

The solution, for many drivers, is to cut through residential streets. So many drivers have chanced upon this obscure but clever idea that now little narrow lanes have one or two dozen cars per block, squeezing past each other with engines roaring in opposite directions, chirping their tires as they blast away from the stop signs, and yelling the LA motor-moron’s slogan, “get off the road!,” to any bicyclists they may have to pass.

And pass and pass and pass. It so happens that one of those hapless roads is Hauser Boulevard, which comprises the first half of my bike ride to the office every morning. Let me recount an all-too-typical incident of recent date:

I was pedaling on to work one morning, going up Hauser as usual. About the middle of one block a gigantic SUV — an Escalade — swung past with the usual flurry of rasping motor sounds and tire hisses. The tires alone seemed nearly as big as my wife’s Mini Cooper. He bounded around a slower car ahead of him too, and crowded up on the next one , since there was opposing traffic and the road is narrow, as are most residential streets.

A block or so later I caught up with him at the light, waiting behind a short row of his fellows. I went past, the light turned green, we all started up again. A half a block later, he passed me again. A block and a half later, I caught up to him again, and passed him again.

This went on for nearly three miles. Finally we came to Santa Monica Boulevard. I pulled up on his left this time and motioned for him to lower the window.

Of course he was probably expecting a lecture from a self-righteous bicycle radical (which I am). Instead I just told him his right brake light was out, and that he might get a ticket for that. He thanked me and turned; I went on.

Maybe, just maybe, he’ll reflect on how much he was spending in gas and nerves to go uphill at exactly the average speed of a greybeard on a bicycle. We can only hope.

At least he didn’t yell at me. Some do. Besides the usual “Get off the road!” mantra, I’ve had drivers inform me that I wasn’t a car, something I thought was pretty obvious. The implication is that I shouldn’t be on the road. So one fellow bitterly informed me one rainy night on Van Ness Avenue. I didn’t bother to argue with him. I just pulled on ahead in the space between the cars and the curb. The cars that were actually blocking his way. I was a mile closer to home before he got to the end of the block. So maybe he was jealous of my freedom.

That both the Universal Vehicle Code and the California Vehicle Code classify bicycles as vehicles and require that one operate them only on the roads is something that these boneheads shouldn’t be ignorant of, considering that they have to pass a test of their knowledge of those very codes to get their licenses. But immuring oneself in a car nurtures ignorance, and here, at Ground Zero of Autogeddon, ignorance is seen as, if not bliss, at least the comfort of the falsely self-righteous.

Plus, if tedious distances and Neanderthal drivers weren’t enough, there’s Proposition 13. Sold to the public as a way to save grandma from being taxed out of her cottage, what it really did was insulate anyone who held onto property past a certain date from paying any reasonable share of property tax. Well, grandma died, and anyway the average homeowner in LA moves every seven years, so all the small property owners were paying high taxes again fairly soon. But the Big Corporations, who hold vast tracts of land for decades, sometimes centuries, well, they’re holding onto their cash. This first great success of the starve-the-beast movement gutted California’s budget, and one consequence of that was that streets and highways that used to rival Switzerland’s now more closely resemble the shattered lanes of particularly destitute Third World countries.

Ripples, cracks, and bumps—why, you hardly even notice them! But potholes the size of real cooking pots do get your attention. Solidified asphalt washboard with repeated three to six-inch heaves that convert your bike from a thoroughbred stallion to a spastic camel as you bounce down the space between the speeding cement truck and the trash-filled gutter are hard not to notice.

Irregular longitudinal trenches up to four inches deep and wide enough to swallow a motorcycle tire, let alone a bicycle’s, occasionally inspire concern. Not to mention the surprisingly unrare blocks of concrete left in the street for weeks at a time—chunks of curb broken off in violent accidents are common, as well as fistfuls of macadam torn up by the relentless pounding of heavy trucks. Never mind the sheets of plywood, constellations of broken glass, and half-mashed shopping carts…

And dead rats. Lots of those in Hollywood, for some reason.

Fourth Street, near where I live, is a designated bicycle route. Halfway down one mansion-bordered declivity is a bad patch job where a one-by-four foot rectangle of road drops four inches down, leaving edges of jagged concrete.

The bike lanes on the eastern stretch of Sunset Boulevard place you about eighteen inches from car doors—if they’re small cars. Of course the SUV-stretch pickup with the dual rears sprawls well beyond the painted line designating your space, forcing you out into the path of stoned gangbangers, imbecilic teenagers, hemmorhoidal lawyers snarling into cell phones as they swerve their Beemers through traffic, and befuddled immigrants who took their first driving lessons at age seventy-five.

You’ve really got to love bicycling to ride in LA.

It’s a tribute to the World’s Most Efficient Machine that some of us do.

More and more each day; I see them every morning, every night, and unlike the Spandex Superheroes who attack the canyons Sunday mornings, they wave back when you say hello. We’ve even got Critical Mass, and when a phalanx of bicyclists occupies a whole block of La Brea Avenue, the diners at the sidewalk tables look up, shocked by the sudden tranquility—and everyone smiles.

So there’s hope, even here. But we’re still pioneers against our will. All we want to do is ride our bikes and create a little peace in a weary world. LA makes it difficult. But still we ride.

See more writing from Richard at EBykr

Sixteen years ago, in March 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska’s pristine Prince William Sound. Approximately 258,000 barrels of crude oil were spilled. One barrel of oil contains 42 gallons. Translated, that’s about 11 million gallons of slick, sickening oil.

In 1994, a federal jury ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion in punitive damages to the people so deeply affected by the oil spill. As of October 2005, has a penny of this money been paid? Guess.

No, it has not. The people at the top of Exxon think they’ve done plenty for the region and continue to use stall tactics to avoid paying the $5 billion award, even though this amount is trivial in the pockets of this huge corporation. Record profits don’t matter when you’re trying to avoid paying to clean up something that you’re responsible for.

Did you know that waiting pays? It has been estimated that Exxon has earned millions of dollars strictly in interest from the original figure of $5 billion it was ordered by a judge’s hammer to cough up.

Don’t let Exxon mislead you by their claims of paying a few billion for environmental cleanup and land restoration. Exxon has been reimbursed for the most part by the insurance industry . . . and by American taxpayers. Spill-related tax deductions?

Much of the environment has never recovered, including harbor seals, harlequin ducks, pacific herring, sea otters, certain whales, and other impacted wildlife. The lingering oil from the Exxon Valdez will kill or stunt Alaskan pink salmon for generations to come as well as create permanent genetic damage in various species of fish and other sea mammals. The death count (representing only 10-30% of the total accounted for that died): 4,000 sea otters, 1,000 adult eagles, 345 seals, 500,000 murres, and many, many invertebrates and intertidal creatures.

The towns’ responsibilities to provide food and clothing for their people were also dramatically injured. Clinical depression. Attempted suicide. Domestic violence. Broken families. Chronic psychological stress. All effects of the trauma suffered by self-made residents. $5 billion? A paltry amount when it comes to human suffering and loss of wildlife.

To add more tragedy to travesty, Exxon used 140º F water, sprayed at overly high pressure, to “clean” the shoreline. This action, which was like a poison to the beach and many animals, did more harm than good. The hot water, high-pressure washing removed the nutrients and sediments of the shore that would have aided in the recovery of the ecosystem.

Have you heard about the “secret” agreement in 1991 that Exxon signed with seven seafood processors based in Seattle? These processors lost business because of the Valdez spill, and here’s the deal they struck with the corporate giant: Exxon paid these processors $70 million in exchange for the processors giving Exxon their share of the punitive damages, if the damages were paid. That would have been $745 million—15% of the total $5 billion. Exxon was busted when they claimed this money was given to the processors out of the goodness of the company’s heart. A very blackened heart.

Were you aware that the captain of the Exxon Valdez was reportedly intoxicated when he took the tanker out across Prince William Sound on that cold March night? He had spent the day drinking with members of his crew. Coast Guard tests revealed that Captain Joseph Hazelwood’s blood alcohol level was .241, which is more than six times the legal level under Coast Guard regulations. He put the vessel on automatic pilot, left the bridge, and the rest is dark history. The supertanker struck Bligh Reef, spilling 11 million gallons of oil.

The Aftermath

What happened to Hazelwood? He was acquitted in 1990 of operating the tanker while drunk. Hazelwood was convicted of the misdemeanor offense of illegally discharging oil, and in 1998, the Alaska Appeals Court upheld Hazelwood’s sentence on that charge, and he was fined $50,000.

The Exxon Valdez was renamed as the SeaRiver Mediterranean, and still carried oil around the world, although this tanker was barred from entering Alaskan waters. In 2002, the single-hull tanker was pulled from service.

In 1990, the U.S. introduced and passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (subsequent to the Exxon Valdez oil spill). OPA 90 required new oil tankers to be double hulled and established a phase-out program for single-hull tankers, which rules that these older tankers complete their phase out by 2015. Double hull versus single hull reasoning: If the outer hull is breached, the inner hull will contain the fuel. While this measure has decreased the amount of oil spills, it surely has not eliminated them.

In 1999, many opposed the Exxon/Mobil merger because of Exxon’s failure to pay awarded punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez devastation. Unfortunately, the opposition lost.

In 2001, the Alaskan town of Cordova lost their mayor to suicide, apparently because of the seesaw events within the court system.

Oil Flows Into The Sea

Since the Exxon Valdez disaster, 13 other large oil spills have been caused by a variety of mishaps, not all of which were accidental.

• December 1989—The Canary Islands: Kharg-5, Iranian supertanker explosion. 19 million gallons of oil surged into the Atlantic Ocean.
• June 1990—Galveston, Texas: Explosion and fire on board Mega Borg. 5.1 million gallons of dispersed oil.
• January 1991—Kuwait: During the Persian Gulf War, Iraq purposely released 240-260 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 miles off the southern coast of Kuwait.
• April 1991—Genoa, Italy: 42 million gallons of oil spilled by Haven in the Genoa port.
• May 1991—Angola: The ABT Summer exploded and spread 15-18 million gallons of oil off the coast of Angola.
• March 1992—Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan: 88 million gallons of oil gushed from an oil well.
• August 1993—Tampa Bay, Florida: Three ships collided. A freighter, Balsa 37, and two barges, Bouchard B155 and Ocean 255. Tampa Bay was deluged by approximately 336,000 gallons of oil by the Bouchard.
• September 1994—Russia: An estimated 84 million gallons of oil inundated the Kolva River tributary when the dam that had been built to contain the oil burst.
• February 1996—Milford Haven, Wales: Supertanker Sea Empress ran aground off the Welsh coast dumping 70,000 tons of oil.
• December 1999—Britanny, French Atlantic coast: Erika broke apart and sank. 3 million gallons of oil spilled.
• January 2000—off Rio de Janeiro: 343,200 gallons of oil spewed into the sea after the rupture of a government pipeline.
• November 2000—Port Sulphur, Louisiana: Westchester lost power and ran aground on the Mississippi River, south of New Orleans. 567,000 gallons of oil deposited into the lower Mississippi. This was the largest U.S. spill since the Exxon Valdez in 1989.
• November 2002—Spain: The Prestige suffered a damaged single hull and was towed to sea to sink. Almost 2 million gallons of oil leaked from the vessel before it sank, and approximately 18 million gallons of oil remain underwater.

The Prestige is a perfect example of loopholes. It was operated by a Greek firm but was registered in the Bahamas and flew a Bahamian flag. The ship had been chartered by a Swiss-based Russian oil company. Registering tankers in countries known to have ineffective safety regulations or loose taxation requirements is not uncommon. Countries have the right to close their ports to ships that cannot prove documentation of a recent safety inspection.

The OPA 90 Act will have a positive impact in the decrease of accidental oil spills, but the events of the past 16+ years are an ominous indicator of how the biggest, most profitable companies in the world will react to and whitewash the black oil spills of the future.

Jan Blair

sources
Official website of Exxon Valdez victims

enviroliteracy.org

Fact Monster—World and News—Disaster Digest

Full Resolution Images

It’s true that timing is everything. Though in the case of hurricane Katrina, the timing was everything bad. In fact, for the state of Mississippi and the city of Biloxi, the timing couldn’t have been worse.

Though the media has chosen to fixate on the city of New Orleans, the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina actually covers a land mass nearly equal in size to Great Britain. Over 90,000 square miles. Biloxi, Mississippi is part of that mass of destruction.

Located on the gulf shore, Biloxi is home to over 50,000 people. The 2000 U.S. Census estimated there were just under 12,000 residential homes in Biloxi at that time. If reports of over 5,000 residential homes being destroyed by Katrina are accurate, it means nearly half of the city’s homes are in ruins. Now that Katrina has left her mark, some aspects of the city’s future are uncertain.

Biloxi, along with Venice, LA, is renown for its King Mackerel and Red Drum fishing. The Southern Kingfishing Association and the FLW Kingfish Tour regularly hold their championship tournaments in the now devastated city of Biloxi. Though they’d like to believe that Biloxi can recover in time to hold this year’s events (which are scheduled for later this year), both organizations are looking for alternate locations.

In addition to professional fishing tours and tournaments, commercial fishing has been a way of life for hundreds of Biloxi’s residents. Hurricane Katrina hit right at the peak of shrimping season, and the start of oyster season. What had been a $700 million/year Gulf coast industry is now all but gone. Initial estimates are that 2/3 of the previously harvestable oyster beds have been decimated. The undersea economy has been crippled, and U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez has announced a “fishery failure” in the Gulf. The announcement was made through the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which provides federal funding for relief and research after natural disasters, and through the Inter-jurisdictional Act, which makes funding available directly to affected fishermen.

There are currently over 300 federally licensed fishing vessels in the state of Mississippi.

NOAA has plans to conduct extensive studies of the water and marine life, beginning this week. It’s research vessel, the Nancy Foster, is already in the Gulf, conducting surveying cruises. Biologist aboard the vessel will take water samples, look at sediments in the Mississippi River, and test fish and shrimp for toxins and pathogens.

In addition, the EPA’s environmental aircraft (ASPECT) is being used to survey spills, and other damage, from the air.

Typically, during a hurricane, fish and shell fish are not only killed, but also washed out to sea. In time, the ones that are washed out usually return. But EPA and NOAA officials are concerned that contaminants in the Gulf water will contaminate returning sea life as well, making it unedible and therefore unmarketable. As the floodwaters have receded in Biloxi, they’ve carried industrial chemicals, petroleum, human and animal bodies, and dozens of cubic feet of solid waste. The FDA has stated that “anything that was potentially exposed to flood waters would be unfit for the human food supply and would have to be destroyed.”

Officials are also worried about the condition of the overall marine eco-sytem. Initial surveys of the Gulf have turned up everything from sunken boats to cars and roofs. Many of the boats and cars are leaking oil and fuel. There is also concern about radiological contaminants from universities and hospitals, and chemical spills from coastal businesses.

Not only has the water been contaminated, but the Gulf is also largely non-navigable. The coast of Biloxi was lined with floating casinos, which have been destroyed. The debris from those, and countless other structures, is now bogging down coastal waters. So even if the fishing was still good, the boats couldn’t maneuver well enough to do anything about it.

In addition to the hard hit Gulf waters, the EPA estimates the following affects in Mississippi as well:

• Over 500 drinking water systems affected
• Over 450 water systems have “boil water” notices
• 45 waste water treatment facilities affected

All things that add up to unsanitary, unsafe conditions. At one point, a Biloxi shelter was evacuated for fear of a dysentery outbreak.

Because NOAA is just beginning it’s research, the environmental affects of Hurricane Katrina won’t be fully known for some time. Though specifics are not yet known, the consensus seems to be that some of the damage is permanent. While water systems and treatment plants are repaired, and businesses rebuilt, the local fishing industry may never be what it was prior to Hurricane Katrina. And marine life and eco-systems may never fully recover.

Sources:

• Sun Herald
• http://www.biloxi.ms.us/
• http://www.usgs.gov/katrina/
• http://www.epa.gov/katrina/
• http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2506.htm