[Wildcatk23]

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/08/vi...pi/?hpt=T2

Thoughts? Dumping The wast Against The Towns Wishes?

[Hoot Gibson]

I was prepared to condemn the dumping but after watching the video, I see no problems with it. Waste Management owns the landfill and it is licensed by the state - not by Harrison County. The landfill was designed to handle the type of solid waste that BP is dumping there. Most importantly, Harrison County is located along the coast, Gulf Coast, which is the area that has benefited most from oil exploration and production. Harrison County is also in the area that will benefit most from the cleanup.

So, where is the beef? Why should the areas standing to gain the most from the cleanup and who have already benefited from BP's operations in the Gulf not participate in the disposal of the BP waste? Where else would make more sense to dispose of this waste?

I have a big problem when Kentucky's counties and its state government licensing landfills to accept out of state medical and other hazardous waste from far off states like New York and New Jersey. IMO, BP is doing the right thing here. If BP were hauling waste to a poor, rural northern Mississippi county or to eastern Kentucky in response to objections from the people of Harrison County, that would be wrong.

This kind of journalism is the reason CNN has slipped so far behind Fox News in the ratings. Cooper and his team obviously invested very little time and money in producing this feeble attempt to smear BP. I doubt that they even checked the landfill's safety and environmental records. If they had, then Cooper should have mentioned the results of the research, even if WM had a squeaky clean record. Instead, the video clip was short on facts and relied on nothing but emotion to imply wrongdoing by BP. This is not investigative reporting it is advocacy journalism badly done.