Whats a small town worth if it's flooded with oil?

2007, Coffeyville Kansas.  Flood waters wash into Coffeyville Resources Refinery, stupidly located on the bank of the Verdigris River, stupider still it has an insignificant levy system of it's own.  Oil swept through much of the eastern side of the town, leaving oil soaked houses inside and out as much as 15' deep.  The oil covered everything and the stink prevented many from trying to recover items.  After many many months the refinery started buying these homes.

My aunt 99 at the time, had moved to a nursing home a few days before the flood, everything that was left in the house was lost.  She died at 102 still pissed about the loss of "her mothers" keepsakes.  (not her house shown in photo)  I don't recall what she got for the house, it was a tiny tiny amount we all were astonished.  Every house in the area was condemned and bulldozed the area declared contaminated.   I think it was 25k, a joke, a big gingerbread house in good condition, and thats the way it was, so that was the kind of reward you get for 50 years in a house, keeping it perfect, a garden that looked like a magazine article.

If you drive through the area now, it's just a grid of streets, no houses, the gardens all died, the small trees too, but it appears most the older trees survived.  

Yesterday, "proving swift justice prevailed" (ha!), the federal government issued a fine for wiping out much of a small town.  TWO MILLION $'s.  I expect they will contest it, it's not the money of this joke of a fine they need to save, it's the rule of the fossil fuel industry, fight everything, fight it forever, if it is about damage, fairness,  responsibility, safety, environment, fight it, fight it, send money to your congressman, hire an advertisement made, and fight it forever.

So what can you do about it?  Do anything and everything to use less energy, air up your tires, back off the thermostat, use new lighting technologies, use the stairs not the elevator, anything to starve these fucking oil and coal bastards.   And support democrats, their hands aren't clean on some environmental issues, but they are compared to the republicans.

Fuck ted nugent