BP Oil Drilling Disaster is Prompting Legal Moves. Guest Blog by Youbetcha'

While those of us who are environmentally driven ponder and reflect about the horrific impact of the Deepwater Horizon disaster on the environment and humans, high powered legal jockeying is happening right under our noses. As we attempt to measure the leak in terms we can come to grip with, the legal beagles are defining it in the terms of law suits.

Over the past week, in the Herald classified section, a series of “Public Notices” have been published in regards to the Deepwater Horizon spill. This is nothing more than a preemptive legal move to either look good for public perception or as in the case of one company, limit (or make disappear) any liability.

It is heartrending to see the loss of life, to witness the destruction of the wondrous beauty of our wildlife, seashores and marshes and to stand-by as generations of family businesses are buried under brown goo.

What is even more distressing is that the Herald’s classified section portends the fact that someone in the oil world is acknowledging the worst is yet to come. By getting ahead in their corporate damage control process, their legal teams march onward, all the while the rest of us sit wondering what we should (or could) do next to help slow the damage.

In the end, the lawsuits that follow will be the only aspect of this disaster that will have a sense of reason and order; the rest of the event will make no sense at all.