According to an article by MSNBC’s chief economic correspondent Martin Wolk, the rising price of oil now surpasses terrorism as the primary concern of economic forecasters. That’s ironic, given the frequency of oil spills in general, and the immediate environmental disaster discovered last Thursday in the Pacific Northwest’s Puget Sound.

Eric Nalder and Phuong Catle’s piece in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer provides a partial list of oil spills occurring along the West Coast of the United States over the past 20 years. They report that these mishaps occur at a rate of about once a month. Forensic chemists working to determine the source of these spills face not only the challenge of pinpointing suspects who may be unaware of ship leaks, but must also take into account the possibility that guilty parties may be leading them astray by tampering with evidence. In the article, Jim Bruya, a fingerprinting chemist in Seattle, noted:

“There have been cases where a ship’s crew, knowing it will be asked for a sample, has mixed fuels from two tanks filled at different locations to permanently contaminate evidence.”

In Puget Sound, oil cleanup crews are working 12-hour shifts “until they’re finished,” said Jake McLean, a supervisor for the Seattle-based National Response Corporation. The “Dalco Passage Mystery Spill” was reported on the morning of October 15, but weather conditions prevented cleanup crews from slowing the damage for several hours. “…We don’t know how big it is, where it came from, or where it’s headed,” State Department of Ecology spokeswoman Mary Ellen Voss said late Thursday. As of Monday evening, according to Department of Ecology spokesman Larry Altose, the list of suspects has been narrowed down from a dozen to two.

Environmental activists are angered by the slow response of government agencies to contain the damage.

“We know quite a lot about currents and tides in Puget Sound. And so even though it’s dark … knowing the approximate location of a spill could alert the agencies to the possibility of oil coming to shore in certain areas,” explained Kathy Fletcher, executive director of the environmental group People for Puget Sound.

Who needs terrorists? Fellow Americans, we can ruin the environment ourselves, by contributing to the latest fad: the philosophy of apathy.