The spill fouled 1,000 miles of beach, staining the virgin shores of two national parks and countless islands and inlets.
In Graham's view, the visceral nature of immigration politics combined with the BP oil spill fouled the waters for debate on a comprehensive energy bill — "a huge lift in good circumstances," he told me in May.
The EPA's communication efforts were the target of a complaint from the Society of Environmental Journalists, which criticized the agency's slow response to media inquiries after a chemical spill fouled the drinking water around Charleston, W.Va., last year.
Rivers caught fire, oil spills fouled U.S. shores, toxic waste dumps proliferated, and Los Angeles seemed permanently wreathed in smog.
But the predominantly white citizens of that town objected, pointing out that a spill could foul their drinking water.
That stands in stark contrast to the experience of the victims of the last major oil spill to foul U.S. waters.
A big spill would foul at least some of the beaches if it went on long enough, which would be an economic disaster.
BEIJING — Seven officials in southern China have been removed from their jobs in the wake of a toxic heavy metal spill that fouled drinking water supplies for tens of millions of people, the state news media reported Friday.
A Hangzhou environmental official, Lao Xinxiang, told news agencies on Monday that the spill had fouled drinking water for at least 552,200 people in that city and surrounding communities.
LOCAL LORE *Oil companies pay the best salaries, on average, but locals resent the offshore rigs that are visible from the beach; few who lived in town in 1969 have forgotten (or forgiven) the blowout and spill that fouled the beaches and coated seals and sea birds with sticky crude.
