| It was just a week and a half ago, when -- in a column devoted to attacking environmentalists and with great hilarious irony headlined "Demagogues seize upon Kalamazoo oil spill" -- noted wildlife biologist Magic Frank wrote these words: No one wants a problem like this and we'd be better off if the residents near the Kalamazoo River didn't have to smell the crude for a short time, but the long term impact of this is negligible.
He would, of course, go on to change the short-term problem of the unfriendly whiff of crude in the air after people had to be evacuated for their own health, but from today's Freep: MARSHALL -- The oil spill that dumped up to a million gallons of crude into the Kalamazoo River is expected to cause long-term damage to at least a 30-mile stretch of once pristine marshes along the river, destroying habitat for resident geese, ducks, frogs, herons, muskrats and swans for possibly years to come.
...snip... Some creatures are lucky, such as a 10-inch turtle rescued Friday whose body was layered in oil as thick as tar, except for two tiny holes for its nose and two eye slits. But fish and birds have fled, and the insects, mussels and frogs that are the base of the food chain for them have died, suffocated by the oil. When the fish and birds return, they may have nothing to eat.
In short, the spill has mostly destroyed this ecosystem for years to come by wiping out the critters on which it was built. Nice punditing there, Magic Frank. Nice punditing. |
