By Hanna Grissel
Can’t quite put my finger on it.
You may not have heard that on Sept. 9, a leak was discovered in a small section of Colonial Pipeline underground pipeline that runs through rural Shelby County, Alabama. A large leak that Colonial has acknowledged that around 336,000 gallons of gasoline spilled, though the actual amount could be higher. This is an obvious concern, given the prominence of protests and controversy surrounding the Bakken pipeline, but what is even more alarming is the negligible coverage of potential environmental concerns.
According to the Shelby County Reporter, “Colonial Pipeline delivers more than 100 million gallons of refined products each day to markets between Houston and New York City, serving more than 50 million people each day.” Which means this spill had the potential to economically affect a large portion of the population in the East and Southeast.
Almost every source I could find was worried about the economic impact this would/could have on consumers as opposed to expressing worry about the potential environmental impacts. A worry that only appeared to pull coverage from local news outlets.
At first, this seemed surprising to me, considering the area in which the spill occurred is “within an unusually sensitive ecological area.” The site of spill is also in a wildlife-management area home to hundreds of known species; a few mussels that reside there are even endangered. On top of this, the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge begins only a few miles downstream.
At this point it seems a major water-related catastrophe that would affect the people of Alabama has been avoided. Because a major drinking water intake for Birmingham is upstream and much of the gasoline is said to be contained in a retention pond, the coverage seems a little less surprising. We do have a way of disconnecting ourselves from the ecological system we assign all other flora and fauna to.
Some outlets have reported the company is acting quickly to clean and protect the area during the 30-day state of emergency declared by the governor. Which is quite shocking, considering this is a manner in which officials haven’t historically acted in the aftermath of other spills.
Though, to me this amounts to nothing more than a calculated move by Colonial in the wake of enormous protests surrounding the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Protests, prompted by the fear of events just like this one, taking place around a new pipeline. Another pressing matter, receiving much less media coverage than it deserves.
This lack of media coverage, or maybe what I mean to say is news media ignoring critical coverage, appears suspicious. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I can say observing alternative news outlets, say ones with less prolific investors, are the only places to go at this point for news that acknowledges anything more than economic interests.