Oil Lake

Many years ago, I taught Russian refugees. Many related tales of unfathomable catastrophes, including the Chernobyl disaster. One of my students had led the helicopters that dropped sand into the nuclear facility. While radiation-related sickness dogged him in New York, he studied a new, often baffling language and wondered how he would become employed. He talked with me about his experience at Chernobyl calmly, far more so than most people could ever have hoped to muster.

Today, the United States confronts an environmental calamity in the Gulf of Mexico of numbing proportion. One expert claimed today that up to forty percent of the Gulf has essentially become an oil lake. While I doubt Gulf Coast residents will become flee America, I wonder if they will be as resilient as those Russians who left their once-fertile, now-poisoned land.