The Trust

The following is the preface of a book published in 1904.
The History of the Standard Oil Company

By a woman journalist, I would like to add --
by Ida M. Tarbell

A stamp just came out commemorating her.
(I didn't know, by the way, that The Atlantic was 120 years old! This was published in it's early rival McClure's).



I am going to work on reading different parts of it this week and excerpt, I think. I'm fascinated -- by the history, by the writing by the glimpse into current thought in 1904... and today.


This work is the outgrowth of an effort on the part of the editors of McClure's Magazine to deal concretely in their pages with the trust question. In order that their readers might have a clear and succinct notion of the processes by which a particular industry passes from the control of the many to that of the few, they decided a few years ago to publish a detailed narrative of the history of the growth of a particular trust. The Standard Oil Trust was chosen for obvious reasons. It was the first in the field, and it has furnished the methods, the charter, and the traditions for its followers. It is the most perfectly developed trust in existence; that is, it satisfies most nearly the trust ideal of entire control of the commodity in which it deals. Its vast profits have led its officers into various allied interests, such as railroads, shipping, gas, copper, iron, steel, as well as into banks and trust companies, and to the acquiring and solidifying of these interests it has applied the methods used in building up the Oil Trust. It has led in the struggle against legislation directed against combinations. Its power in state and Federal government, in the press, in the college, in the pulpit, is generally recognised. The perfection of the organisation of the Standard, the ability and daring with which it has carried out its projects, make it the pre-eminent trust of the world-the one whose story is best fitted to illuminate the subject of combinations of capital.


Let's remember, now, Standard Oil later became Exxon-Mobil. Read it again:

Exxon-Mobil was chosen for obvious reasons. It was the first in the field, and it has furnished the methods, the charter, and the traditions for its followers. It is the most perfectly developed trust in existence; that is, it satisfies most nearly the trust ideal of entire control of the commodity in which it deals. Its vast profits have led its officers into various allied interests, such as railroads, shipping, gas, copper, iron, steel, as well as into banks and trust companies, and to the acquiring and solidifying of these interests it has applied the methods used in building up the Oil Trust. It has led in the struggle against legislation directed against combinations. Its power in state and Federal government, in the press, in the college, in the pulpit, is generally recognised. The perfection of the organisation of Exxon, the ability and daring with which it has carried out its projects, make it the pre-eminent trust of the world-the one whose story is best fitted to illuminate the subject of combinations of capital.

My Shipping Vessel

The titles with 'My' in them started at the very beginning of the project -- it was a conversation about responsibility and ownership. If I say "mine" am I then more connected -- more inclined -- more in control and more responsible...

Today I am focusing on an article from last week by Bruce Stanley in the Wall Street Journal:
"Single-Hull Oil Tankers Persist as Global Risk."

"A key factor in the accident was almost certainly the tanker's design. The Hebei Spirit was a single-hull ship, just like the Exxon Valdez, which spilled 11 million gallons of oil when it ran aground off the Alaskan coast in 1989.

Eight of the 12 worst oil spills to occur world-wide since the beginning of 2001 have involved single-hull vessels -- an older ship design that uses a single layer of steel plates instead of the more-protective double layer that has become the new industry standard. As single-hull tankers haul only 18% of the world's crude, the tankers' role in these disasters is even more disproportionate.

Shipping-industry executives and environmentalists say the Hebei Spirit would have leaked less oil, or none at all, had it been double-hull. Now, in the wake of the accident, South Korea's government is speeding up plans to bar single-hull tankers from its waters."

The single hulled boats were banned from coming to port in the US after the Valdez crash. Still, about 6%, the article says, are single hulled. That seems like a lot -- and also like security isn't really doing the right kinds of checking. Those are big oil boats, aren't they signing some log somewhere?

In Asia, the number is four out of five. Four out of five!

It seems to make sense -- the combination of the continent's growth and desire and the wealth and willingness to put others at risks from the point of view of those who have the power -- the oil in their boats. It's hard to eliminate race from the issue -- though race and money are inextricable in any event.

"Perhaps surprisingly, given its experience with the Exxon Valdez, the oil titan that employs more single-hull tankers than any other is Exxon Mobil. Of the 170 VLCCs that Exxon Mobil sent to Asia last year, one-third were single-hull ships, the company says. About 10% of the VLCCs that the company deployed to North America and Europe in 2007 were single hulls."

I'm remembering, too, what Ben Stein said recently in the NY Times. "Exxon is us."

Alleged

Today I have less time than even this crazy week allows. Of course, today I am intrigued. Again, I think I can only bring up a topic I will have to begin with tomorrow...

I started with an article on Bloomberg -- The Supreme Court refused to hear a case in which Exxon was trying to get rid of MORE punitive damages. Another case. More billions. Okay, you start to see why Exxon doesn't just pay them -- because they must be in them all the time! Wish list for the day: a complete list of court cases against Exxon and salaries paid to Exxon lawyers.

Here's the paragraph from that article that caught my eye:

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, argued unsuccessfully that jurors improperly penalized the company for potential medical problems suffered by workers at the site.

The trial ``became a referendum on whether Exxon Mobil should be punished for the alleged risk of health problems it may have imposed on individuals not before the court,'' Exxon's lawyer, Walter Dellinger, argued in the appeal.

To repeat:
"the alleged risk of health problems that may have been imposed"

This I'm intrigued by. The same is being said for Ecuador. The same for Greenpoint. All over, I'm sure, but these are the stories that have my attention right now.

The alleged carcinogenic effect of oil fumes leaks.

I want to figure out how you prove it -- how do you link cancer to a carcinogen? How do you isolate carcinogens? If there are any oncologists out there who would be willing to talk to me, let me know.

As I've said before, both of my grandparents died of lung cancer -- they lived for 60 years on top of that oil spill in Brooklyn. They smoked, too -- we always assumed that that was the source of the illness.

Proof. What constitutes proof... probability, possibility...

Despite the lack of connection I managed on the pesticide front, I am going to start here tomorrow. I've already got the articles, I just don't have the time to read them. I'm going to Greenpoint tomorrow, actually -- so maybe I can even post up some pictures soon. The first in a series of pilgrimages...

And what difference does it make anyway...
my grandparents are dead; grandma's best friend Elsie died of lung cancer too -- a long long time ago. She used to make boxes and bowls out of knit together old Christmas cards and she taught my Rummy 500, which I now play all the time with my son.
It matters because it is still going on all the time.
It matters because someone else's father is growing up on a spill as we speak.

It matters because Exxon is the largest oil company in the world (according to Bloomberg), and if we don't ask them to be responsible in this crucial time in history -- who possibly can help anything...

Singled Out

WASHINGTON (AP) — Big Oil is once again being called on the carpet. Senior executives of the five largest U.S. oil companies were to appear before a congressional committee Tuesday where they were likely to find frustrated lawmakers in no mood for small talk.

This article was filed an hour ago.
First off, I love tenses. Here, the future is not certain. "Were to appear." Because it will have happened (or not) by the time this article is read by most, but hasn't yet, and can't be counted on. My children were to have gotten up. My class was to have been taught. It's a little dizzying, too, isn't it. The sun was to have arisen... And refreshing -- the polar bears were to become extinct... It lends the option of reading in the present tense what didn't happen... also the reality that whatever we think could be wrong.

Anyway --

The oil companies are being called in to defend their government subsidies.

"The lawmakers were scheduled to hear from top executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips, which together earned about $123 billion last year because of soaring oil and gasoline prices.

Markey, chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, said he wants to know why, with such profits, the oil industry is steadfastly fighting to keep $18 billion in tax breaks, stretched over 10 years."

Industry leaders say the tax breaks are needed to continue exploration and development. Also, of course, it is said implied that the price of gas will skyrocket if the breaks are lifted...

I always believed that -- that gas prices stayed low because of subsidies. But what if that's not true -- what if gas prices in this country are low because that's the nature of supply and demand -- we have a really big country, and people have to cover a lot of distances -- if the price of gas were a lot higher maybe there would have been a push for public transportation years ago. Just as the technology for the 100 mpg car exists -- and the electric car...

Maybe it's not the pocket change billions the oil companies are fighting for, but keeping the money out of the research of alternative fuels...

It's all speculation. I'm feeling speculative today.

In the article, Bush says that oil companies shouldn't be singled out.
Bush says he'll veto the bill whatever the outcome.

A Private Matter

Yesterday the Supreme Court began hearing arguments about the Exxon Valdez oil spill -- about whether or not punitive damages of $2.5 billion dollars should be dismissed.

Some notes:

Here is the opening of the "Argument Preview" from the Supreme Court website:

"Exxon Shipping Co., et al., v. Baker, et al., is known – and will always be known popularly – as a case about one of history’s most destructive oil spills. The case is also steeped in maritime lore, because the tanker ship carrying the oil hit bottom on Alaska’s Bligh Island Reef, named for Captain William Bligh, a central figure in the story of the mutiny on The Bounty. But this controversy takes its place on the Supreme Court’s docket as a test of maritime law that reaches back to an 1818 Supreme Court decision charmingly titled The Amiable Nancy. The core issue is whether maritime law allows any punitive damages again a ship owner/operator for an oil spill such as this one and, if so, how high such a damage award may legally go."

Nina Totenberg, the Supreme Court reporter for NPR, is one of my heroes -- her calm and delineated way of explaining the interchanges in the institution are forever in my head when I think about the court at all. Thank you, Nina.

Samuel Alito is sitting out of this case. He owns stocks in Exxon. Why on earth are our Supreme Court Justices allowed to own stock? Any stock! Many journalists aren't allowed to own stock for fear of conflicts. It's the supreme court, for crying out loud. Pay them well -- really well; it's a big job, and they never do anything again -- but make them get RID of their portfolios! Rid.

One issue is that Exxon knew that Hazelwood, a self-admitted alcoholic, had fallen off the wagon when he assumed the helm of the Valdez.

From the website corporate statement:
"ExxonMobil has an unwavering commitment to high ethical standards, operations integrity and flawless execution. This is embedded in our company culture and implemented through our management systems. Our Standards of Business Conduct form the foundation for this commitment, with 16 corporate policies in addition to the company-wide expectations for open-door communication."

Exxon says that they should not be subject to punitive damages because they were not seeking to make big profits from their action. This is interesting to me. Because they were not looking to profit specifically from keeping Hazelwood, a known alcoholic, from captaining the Valdez, they should not be subject to punishment.

Here's the Wikipedia entry for the term "Public Trust." (More hypocrisy on my part!)

"The concept of the public trust relates back to the origins of democratic government, and its seminal idea that; within the public, lies the true power and future of a society, therefore, whatever trust the public places in its officials must be respected.

"One of the reasons why bribery is regarded as a notorious evil is that it contributes to a culture of corruption in which public trust is eroded.

A famous example of the betrayal of public trust is in the story of Julius Ceasar, who was killed by Roman Senators who believed they had to act drastically to preserve the republic against his alleged monarchical ambitions. It is an interesting concept, nevertheless."

The blog of the American Constitution Society said this yesterday:

"Tort law must continue to perform the work of punishing and deterring misconduct that harms private interests. The applicable federal and state laws work together to provide comprehensive but not overlapping remedies for public and private harm. The Supreme Court should continue to recognize this important distinction and retain the plaintiffs’ longstanding rights to both compensatory and punitive damages."

This from the Supreme Court Blog background:

"At seven minutes after midnight on March 24, 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez, loaded with oil and steaming out of Alaska’s Prince William Sound, ran aground on Bligh Reef after missing a turn that would have allowed it to sail safely on out to sea. The ship was owned by a subsidiary of the oil company, Exxon Mobil, and its captain at the time was an Exxon employee, Joseph Hazelwood. The record of the case is filled with arguments and counter-arguments about whether Hazelwood was drunk, about what Exxon knew about that, and just how the turn was missed while Hazelwood was away from the bridge (in violation of company rules). There is no dispute about the first result of the grounding: With the reef punching a hole in the Valdez’s hull, some 11 million gallons of its cargo – equal to about 258,000 barrels – spilled into the Sound, and wind and water spread it over a 600-mile area in the midst of a productive fishery area."

This from a 1994 article from The Anchorage Daily News:

ANCHORAGE- For the first time since he radioed that the Exxon Valdez had "fetched up hard aground" on Bligh Reef five years ago, Capt. JoeHazelwood on Tuesday began his public reckoning of his role in the disaster and of his bouts with alcohol. Speaking as one of the first witnesses called by the attorneys suing him and Exxon in U.S. District Court,Hazelwood described the two-faced life he led during the years leading up to the spill: drinking at sea, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous at home.

In slow, deliberate speech, Hazelwood said many Exxon officials knew he was drinking, but had they asked for details or probed, "I probably would have slammed the door in their face."

"I thought it was a private matter," he said.

I've mentioned before that I am teaching Frankenstein right now -- I still think it's fascinating -- all the issues of responsibility and consequence...

Yesterday, a student for whom I have a big soft spot wrote a free write correlating her own battles with alcoholism with Frankenstein's -- I told her I was concerned that over identification could be problematic in her instance -- taking too much responsibility could work against her ability to keep her life in perspective...

There aren't that many of us with the capacity to commit deep crimes against nature through our own actions and inactions -- to create such catastrophic results in our environments...





www.valdezlink.com


openlearn.open.ac.uk


www.coastalandoceans.com

Hearts and Other Gushers

Well, I set out to be holidayish this morning. I tend to like Valentines Day -- my mother used to put out lots of sparkle and glitter and hearts and things -- also yesterday I really was sick of everyone.

But look what I found --
A few months ago in Houston there was a huge conference which put heart surgeons and oil industry researchers in the same room to brainstorm!

Pumps, valves, coursing liquid.

Everyone wants to be more efficient.
Everyone wants to be less intrusive.
Everyone knows that what they provide is crucial.

Pumping -- transferring -- embedded imposed passages -- corrosion -- clogged lines...

It's kind of cool -- all the power point material is on-line!

One presentation was called "Top 10 Reasons we Are Really in the Same Business." The number one reason was the cool uniforms. Can you imagine a room full of brain surgeons and oil executives laughing at slapstick power point presentations?

One new breakthrough in angioplasty is a bioabsorbable stent -- after six months the whole thing deteriorates and is absorbed into the body.

In one of the presentations Exxon says,

"The pumping system we use are familiar and have been around a long time. The challenge is in the techniques used to transfer energy to deeper pumps efficiently in the face of the increasingly hostile and sensitive environments we face."

Well -- they are Exxon, after all. Can't get too gushy.

Interesting to think about how one looks at their environment -- and how you behave in one you consider both hostile and fragile... I've known hostile and fragile people from time to time -- generally I try to stay away from them... especially on Valentine's Day.

I first came across this story on a blog titled, Applied Imagination. That's what's so cool -- just the idea of bringing people together to think together -- to parallel industries in a way most people would never think of. That's what Einstein did, wasn't it... people are pretty amazing...

Corruptors of Governments

The other day I mentioned in passing the law suit that temporarily bars Venezuela from control over its own oil supplies -- the order passed down freezes 12 billion dollars in assets.

I've been avoiding Venezuela. I'm not sure I can do it any more justice today. As if to underscore that fact I clicked on a link to "current local time in Caracas;" It's 6:29 am there -- which is exactly a half an hour off of the time here. Good Grief.

I was told last year that Venezuela was the biggest story not being looked at in oil world-wide. Venezuela, one of the largest oil suppliers in the world, I was told, is letting their fields languish in pursuit of it's socialist ideals... putting money into social programs and such at the expense of the oil fields. "Isn't that a good thing?" I said at the time; feeling silly even as the words came out.

The latest law suit with Exxon has to do with Chavez attempting to exert control over their own oil reserves -- asking Exxon and others to abandon billions of dollars of investment.

The problem with this story is that I don't trust the reporting. That is my least favorite situation to be in. For the most part I spend a lot of time trying to convince people that the American press is an amazing institution -- but occasionally I do feel like I'm reading non-thinking pop-language soundbites at best -- government propaganda at worst.

Venezuela’s government has been seething since Exxon recently won orders in British, Dutch and American courts freezing as much as $12 billion in Venezuelan oil assets abroad — refineries and other oil-related infrastructure that Venezuela owns. Venezuela vowed to overturn the decisions before arbitration over Exxon’s attempts to win compensation for its nationalized oil project.
By Simon Romero, NYT

Seething? Vowed? It has seemed clear over the past few months in trying to delve into this story that Chavez is turning into a cartoon.

"I'LL GET YOU MY PRETTY, AND YOUR LITTLE DOG, TOO!"
I watched the Wizard of Oz this weekend with 6 kids between the ages of 5-7.

Chavez, for his part, is certainly an easy target -- the propaganda he spews aids the image...

“I speak to the American empire, because that’s the master,” Mr. Chávez said. “Continue, and you will see that we won’t send one drop of oil to the empire of the United States.” Referring to Exxon, he said, “They are imperialist bandits, white-collar criminals, corruptors of governments, overthrowers of governments.”

The issue is language again, and how do we trust people who are so clearly trying to tell us what to think... so clearly communicating with words intended to elicit feeling, not thinking...

The problem inside Venezuela is that there is still an extreme food crisis.

The problem outside Venezuela is that world oil prices being effected.

I guess one question is whether or not socialism can exist at all in this globalized world -- and how on earth that works in a country so enmeshed in the oil market.

I Learned One Thing About Amelia Earhart This Morning.

I'm having trouble focusing this morning. Sometimes you want to have one conversation, but others enter in -- sometimes information just rolls through without an ability to find a home --

This morning I came across an organization called Art Not Oil whose sole mission is to get oil companies away from art sponsorships.


Fruits For Whom? - Jorge Alcoreza (Bolivia)

The issue is corporate sponsorship -- does it limit freedom of discussion about issues of global climate change... there is no money in the arts -- for the arts. Corporate sponsorship has always been one of the ways that artists have found funding for such things as... well... eating. Corporate sponsorship has also always changed the subject of art. Think of European art of the 18th and 19th centuries -- the heavy emphasis on Catholicism has everything to do with the fact that the Catholic church had the money -- to commission, to support... now think missionaries.

The site is entirely devoted to the Shell Corporation -- this seems strange to me -- and I'm wondering about the motives...

I for one am obsessed with Exxon right now.

Exxon won a law suit yesterday barring the Venezuelan government from selling off their own oil assets to ease financial difficulties. An oil company won a law suit exerting control over the autonomy of a government.

Exxon (in its earlier manifestations) was the company that supplied fuel both for Amelia Earhart and the Wright brothers. For a nifty little interactive history you can go to the company's website.

But the thing that compelled me most this morning was that I learned that Amelia Airhart was beautiful.

You can try to have one conversation -- mean to -- maybe it's an important conversation -- about how we fund the arts or sell out -- the state of the world or say goodbye. Whatever happened to her... Maybe we meant to say that and a photograph came in -- and you are interrupted -- and you interrupt yourself to say good luck when you meant to say good bye.

Percentage of Fault Allocated

I couldn't even look at this at a normal hour today -- I'm at a bit of a loss, feeling like I've stumbled into some sort of gap in the project and also my own history that I'm not sure how to handle...

Anyway, I started looking through the NY Times cross referencing Brooklyn and lung disease. The thing is, I'm not really versed in computer assisted reporting, and the kind of project about Brooklyn I'm contemplating... well... I'm not sure I'm up for it.

February 26, 2007 The violinist and composer Leroy Jenkins, one of the pre-eminent musicians of 1970s free jazz, who worked on and around the lines between jazz and classical music, died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 74 and lived in Brooklyn.

Larry Fink, 2005

Leroy Jenkins playing with the reunited Revolutionary Ensemble.

The cause was complications of lung cancer, said his wife, Linda Harris.

link

*

Donald M. Halperin, a former New York state senator who represented shorefront neighborhoods of Brooklyn for 23 years and then served briefly as Gov. Mario M. Cuomo's housing commissioner, died on Monday in Brooklyn. He was 60.

The cause was lung cancer, said his wife, Brenda Halperin.
link

*

COMPANY NEWS; CIGARETTE MAKER FOUND PARTLY RESPONSIBLE IN MAN'S DEATH
Published: December 19, 2003
link
A New York jury said yesterday that Brown & Williamson, the maker of Lucky Strike cigarettes, was partly responsible for a Brooklyn man's death from lung cancer. A six-person jury at New York Supreme Court in Brooklyn said the man, Harry Frankson, who smoked cigarettes for more than 40 years, was 50 percent at fault for his illness, while British American Tobacco, which has operated in the United States as Brown & Williamson, and other defendants held the rest of the blame. The case was brought by Gladys Frankson, Mr. Frankson's widow. The jury will reconvene on Jan. 7 to determine punitive damages. It awarded the plaintiff $350,000 in damages, which will be reduced by half because of the percentage of fault allocated to the plaintiff. The company said it expected the case to be reversed eventually.

I've talked a lot over these last few months about responsibility --
I think that cigarette companies do have a responsibility for selling -- making money on -- administering toxins. Tobacco is one of the only ingestible carcinogens still for sale in this country --
People also have a responsibility - that of choice and free will...

The Brooklyn spill happened, was not cleaned up and was not revealed. If the worse case scenario were true in, and lung disease skyrocketed in Green Point -- is still skyrocketing -- what does that mean? And to smokers? Would the oil companies then owe a percentage of the fault of death? Would cigarette companies be off the hook?

I still just can't quite get my mind around it --
the biggest oil spill in the country --
unnoticed
unattended to...
Could you examine the birds of Brooklyn? Are there any birds left in Brooklyn?

Out the kitchen window in the apartment where my father grew up you could see the tomato plants in the back few feet of yard...
food grown of toxic soil...
permeated
ingested.

My Grandparents Lungs

some things just take a long time to recover from -- and some things are not cleaned up after well...

I myself am slow to get over things... I've been home for two days now and I'm still so tired I can barely see straight --
furthermore I'm still thinking about Brooklyn.

Here's the thing:
Both of my grandparents died of lung disease.

They were smokers -- so this was a surprise to no one. In his Green Point dining room turned clinic, with oozing bandages and an IV drip, my grandfather asked me if I smoked. I lied and said no -- I was 14 at the time -- he knew, I'm sure. He told me to never start. That is a conversation I have remembered with shame my whole life.

This changes none of that -- But still,
what if it wasn't just the smoke...

I thought I should fish around and look for fume inhalation and its relationship to lung disease... I found so much information I'm going to have to spend the next few days (or months) sifting through it.

Unfortunately, most of what I found was in PDF format... as I said, I can barely see straight, but here is one quote from The Material Safety Data Sheet from Granite Construction Incorporated:

"Inhalation: Petroleum asphalt emissions (fumes and vapors) may have an unpleasant odor, and my produce nausea and irritation of the upper respiratory tract. Elevated concentration of thermal decomposition (hydrocarbons) and chemical asphyxiation (carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide). Systematic effects associated with trace components (less than one percent) are not anticipated during normal use. Chronic exposure to elevated levels of asphalt emissions may result in chronic respiratory irritation and/or other lung disease."

Of course there is no article that I can find that says, "prolonged exposure from a 60 year old unattended oil spill in the earth surrounding ones bedroom results in lung disease."

Of course, I'm seriously contemplating an investigative reporting project. Ugh.

And I'm still thinking about yesterday's carpet cleaner -- satisfied that Exxon bought him a fan -- and saying that when he couldn't smell the fumes because of the fans they must be staying underground...

This was not what I expected to learn about oil.
Sometimes a thing becomes more personal than you could ever imagine.

Some people never talk about anything -- maybe talking is too intimate -- too immediate -- maybe it allows for realities one simply doesn't want to exist...

The thing is, what we don't talk about can kill us.
Things don't go away just because we manage to push them out of our senses.

We don't feel them, maybe -- but they live inside our lungs -- eating away at us.
Maybe they killed our ancestors.
Maybe they will kill our children, too...

I thought I would see what would happen if I learned one thing about oil everyday for a year...

It's Stunning

So...
over nearly a century, an estimated 20-30 million gallons of oil has leaked into the water and soil of Greenpoint in Brooklyn, NY. The story got some mounting attention in 2007, as lawsuits are prepared to combat inaction on the part of Exxon and five other companies involved in an enormous toxic waste situation. Read here here here and hear here.

A report this month from the Environmental Protection Agency suggested that the Newtown spill may be twice as large as first believed — some 30 million gallons, nearly three times the size of the Alaska spill. It has polluted the 4-mile strip of waterway and some 55 residential and commercial acres around it, gathering in subsurface reservoirs, mixing with groundwater, creating toxic vapors and and seeping, slowly but inexorably, into the creek. One major concern is the reported leakage of chemical vapor into homes.

Vapors into the homes... arsenic - lead... we have no idea what this means -- has meant to families to children over the years. What effect on families - family histories... could toxic fumes cause toxic behavior? Physical illness? Mental illness...

I've just returned home from a week in Brooklyn, and somehow it seems even closer -- Greenpoint, according to NPR is still home to Polish immigrants -- which is what it was 60 years ago, when the bulk of the spill occurred; which is what it was 60 years ago when my father and his brother Al were playing bloody knuckles and my grandmother and Ellie were standing on the stoop gossiping while the fresh kilbasi boiled inside... when we drank the water...

The spill, originally several times the size of the Exxon Valdez oil leak, resulted from an accident in the 1950s and lay undiscovered until 1978. In notices of intent to sue that were sent to the five companies, Andrew M. Cuomo, the state attorney general, said that so much oil had leaked into the creek that some samples of its sediment, when dried and weighed, were nearly one-tenth oil.

The notices also disclosed that an internal study by one of the companies found nearly 100 different pollutants in the creek water or sediment, including benzene, arsenic and lead.

Of course, the timing is... not for the Polish immigrants. Brooklyn is gentrifying. Already the brick row house my family sold a few decades ago for about $60,000 would be worth probably ten time that; imagine if it wasn't nestled in toxic waste...

“The Brooklyn-Queens waterfront has the potential to be New York’s Gold Coast, with sparkling towers, schools, parks and libraries,” said Eric Gioia, a City Council member whose Queens district abuts the creek. “Cleaning Newtown Creek is critical to that vision.”

Still the ability to ignore is amazing. On the NPR story, a carpet cleaner got Exxon to pay for a fan to ventilate his work area because the smell of oil was so strong.

"with the fans running we don't smell them [the fumes] -- with the fans running, I think they stay underground."

I love the language of that. With the fans running the fumes stay underground.

Brooklyn is home to the biggest oil disaster in this country. I read about this in October, and I've been trying to figure out how to make sense of it since then -- to put into some sort of context...

maybe there simply is none.

When I was about 12 the house across the street from my grandmother's burned to the ground. I wasn't allowed out on the stoop, but I stood at the window and watched it go up -- later I took a picture which is still hanging on my wall --

and the flames swallowed up what had been. And there were rumors of intent -- murmors of intent and neglect and what a pity

and we all stood and watched -- and the fire trucks came late -- and everything was destroyed.