Lake Woebegon

Where all the dead fish are above-average.

Researchers predict the Gulf of Mexico "dead zone," an underwater area with little or no oxygen, will be unusually large this year. But it's unknown how the oil spill will affect it.

In an earlier comment thread, FP alluded to the multiple problems involved in restoring the Gulf Coast to the "better than before the spill" status President Obama has promised.

But while we demand that BP pay to clean up the oil spill, are we demanding that the agricultural industry pay for the dead zones their fertilizer use creates? Are we demanding that food companies put billions in escrow accounts to pay for the damage that unsustainable fishing practices cause? Are we demanding that fossil fuel burning be taxed to pay for the environmental damage it does? Are we demanding the government do more about any of these things? A little, maybe, but not nearly like we're jumping all over BP and the government for the Deepwater Horizon mess. We call them externalities, not catastrophes, and these far greater harms persist, in large measure because they just don't upset us as much as catastrophes do.

To that list, I might as well add, will we ever get anything better than the inadequate 100 year flood protection system the corps is building for us right now? Do we even know how to pay for that?