It’s going to rain.  But it’s not a matter of when; it’s a matter of what.  

BP has had a little oil spill; at least it’s little if you believe the “reporters” BP has hired to spin the story.  The main BP strategy has been to stall.   The longer they stall, the more oil evaporates so they can argue the problem is not as bad as people think.

Evaporation.  Out of sight. Out of mind.  The problem literally disappears.

Or does it?

What goes up must come down, and some people think what is coming down is oily rain.

There is an argument that this is simply not possible.  Evaporation turns the hydrocarbons into a gaseous state, and oil hydrocarbons can’t simply recombine like a magic teleportation machine.   But this may be an argument about semantics rather than environmental peril.   Gaseous hydrocarbons can combine with other things and produce other materials.  Just add water.   Gee, rain contains water, doesn’t it?

What would you get?  No one knows. Not BP. Not the EPA.  Not even me.  And that’s the point.  You have evaporated oil products, you may have evaporated toxic dispersant products, you may have oily smoke residue from the BP oil burning, which also is killing endangered turtle species.  Yep, it’s roast turtle week in the Gulf.  So, burned Gulf sea turtle products are in the air too.   Still, if no one knows exactly what it is, they can’t really prove it is toxic, can they?  So don’t worry, what you don’t know won’t hurt you, or maybe it will, but you’ll never prove it.

Probably the only way you could prove that oil from the Gulf had an impact on New Jersey is if unevaporated oil and the cancer-causing dispersants rained down on us.  And that won’t happen, because that would take a hurricane.  And everyone knows there are never any hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, right?  What?  There are?  Oh gosh, if a hurricane can pick up a cow, it could probably pick up a lot of toxic oil and rain down on us here in New Jersey and get into our water supplies.  After all, when you mix an oil-cano with a hurricane, you get an oil-icane.

What to do?  Well to start with, I think BP has to hire more reporters.  With enough reporters, we just might be able to spin the danger away.

Marvin Wolf is a bankruptcy attorney and regular columnist for Local Talk.  His articles do not contain legal advice, just occasional legal information, opinion and a feeble attempt at satire.  Your mileage may vary and results are not typical. Mr. Wolf can be reached via his website www.wolfprotect.com or at (973) 735-2740.