Sheep Lake, Steens Mountain, Oregon 2004
©EOP
Yesterday BP Oil announced that the unrestrained flow of oil from the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico has been stopped, at least for awhile, marking what we must hope is close to the end of one of the worst crimes against man and nature ever committed by an almost unrestrained oligopoly. I have to admit skepticism that the spillage has indeed ended, but even if it has, the deleterious effects on the ecology of the Gulf (and on public health) of the vast quantity of oil spilled into the Gulf will be a problem for decades, probably for generations. Meanwhile drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus shale continues, and the prospects of fouling a major watershed, a supplier of drinking water to multiple millions of users on the Atlantic Coast, continue unabated.
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality issued a drought watch on 14 July 2010. In northern Virginia thunderstorms brought heavy rain (and damaging wind) over the past week, but there is still a precipitation deficit for the current water year. An exceptionally dry final part of summer could create problems for agriculture and for urban water supplies depending on run of river flows rather than storage dams. At the moment the problem in Virginia is most severe in the area usually called Southside (from Virginia Beach westward following the North Carolina border).The drought watch extends into parts of all the adjacent states. Darker brown shades indicate higher levels of water deficiency on the USGS map below which was posted 15 July (maps are posted weekly at the website Water Watch, a valuable resource).
