Column: Oil spill ruins more than just environment

By Hannah Spaar

Published May 7, 2010

When I read that one of the prompts for my oral Italian final was "Say what angers you," I immediately flipped through my Italian-English dictionary to figure out how to phrase "oil spill."

At some point in elementary school we watched a movie or read a book (I really can't remember which) featuring a pod of whales trying to get through an oil spill. Whichever form it was, it was quite dramatic (we're talking dying whales here), and I have been petrified of oil spills ever since.

I think it's a sign of my naivety. I didn't think anything like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was even possible. I don't understand anything to do with oil in the slightest, and I won't pretend to. Maybe it's my six years of being a Girl Scout kicking in, but I just can't believe "Be Prepared" didn't go through the minds of the people planning pipes under the ocean to transport more oil than I understand how to measure.

Again maybe it's just me, but if I were building something that massive with the potential to destroy an entire extended ecosystem, I'd want to make sure there would be a way to fix it if something went wrong.

It seems not only was the planning of this, done however long ago I don't know, completely lacking common sense, but also some of the response. I was floored when I first heard the claims that President Obama wanted this, and when those sentiments turned into conspiracy theories, I was disgusted.

I will easily claim no one, and I really do mean no one, wanted this to happen. Not the oil companies, not those pressing big oil and not the people opposing it. This is obviously one of the reasons people oppose offshore drilling. If people are opposing offshore drilling for the sake of the environment, they're going to care more for the environment than a petty "I told you so."

As I think about the impending destruction, my thoughts can't help but stray to my memories of the gulf shore, the most prominent of which actually includes marine-life in the area.

When I was eight, my family took a vacation to St. Petersburg Beach, Fla. My sister was six at the time, and we were playing out in the waves one day when our parents called us to shore frantically. It took me a while to figure it out, but soon enough I realized there was a big black blob coming down the shoreline in the shallows we had just been in. That blob turned out to be a group of stingrays.

The stingrays frightened my sister, so after they were gone my mom carried her back out into the water to show her everything was okay. Ironically, my mom stepped on a stingray buried in the sand, which stung her in the ankle. Luckily, everything turned out okay in the long run.

Needless to say, this was the end of not only the fun on this particular vacation but also the end of us traveling to the Gulf of Mexico on any vacation. No matter where we go, my mom and sister are still firmly planted on the beach -- hardly a coincidence.

It's fair to say it would take something massively frightening and terrible to make me feel any pity or concern for the well-being of the harmful, pain-inducing, gross, slimy creatures that ruined my vacation so many years ago and still have an effect on my vacations to this day. You can chalk "massively frightening and terrible" up as words to describe the current oil spill.