Alaska's present, after 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, might be Gulf Coast's future

[2Design]

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/alaskas_present_after_1989_exxon_valdez_oil_spill_might_be_gulf_coast_future.html

But mention the word Exxon to anyone here, and the idyll evaporates. Men break down in tears describing what they lost when 11 million gallons of crude oil spilled into Prince William Sound in 1989 from a grounded tanker named Exxon Valdez. Twenty-one years later, the herring that once signaled the start of the summer season are largely gone, rendering $300,000 permits worthless. Losses are tallied in divorces, suicides, repossessed boats, depleted college funds, friends who moved away. Cynicism, normally a stranger to small towns, has lodged permanently in people's craws, receiving a fresh injection two years ago when the U.S. Supreme Court whittled a $2.5 billion punitive-damages judgment against Exxon down to $500 million.

[ejpoeta]

1. tell me again why we shouldn't be making BP put money into escrow for the

gulf coast victims of their neglegence. i wish it actually WERE for that. they are getting screwed at every turn here. of course i know why that is..... the way this whole mess has played out is the result of years of corporatization of our government to the point where i will bet that the gulf coast residents decimated by this disaster will end up with even less than the piddly bit that those affected by the exxon valdez got. but then again, what's money in the face of entire life's work destroyed and dreams gone.