Credit Where It's Due: Kirby Corp.'s Mounting Oil Spill Bill

Kirby Corps $40,000,000 and Counting Nathan E Stewart Adventure

by Ingmar Lee - 10,000 Ton Tanker

November 3, 2016

I've been browsing the Kirby Corp website (believe me, environmental activism isn't all about fame, fortune and glamour as it is for some...) and although there's a whole lot of bravado about being America's biggest water-borne petroleum distributor, which specializes in such deliveries as heavy fuel oil, black oil, crude oil, bunker fuels, petrochemicals, as well as ethanol, gasoline, diesel and agricultural chemicals, there's no mention of the Kirby Corps $40,000,000-and-counting Nathan E Stewart adventure.

Kirby's website is loudly emblazoned with its motto, -"Putting America's Waterways to Work,"- as well as considerable blather about "safety" and its commitment to "environmental excellence," but there is not a single mention, nothing whatsoever, on the currently unfolding shipwreck story and subsequent petroleum slick disaster that Kirby Corp is responsible for.

And, I guess not surprisingly, there is utterly no mention of the Kirby Corps other recent massive oil spill into Galveston Bay, which polluted 200 miles of Texas shoreline, and for which Kirby Corp was found guilty of in court.

Instead, the Kirby Corp website is focused on advertising its presentations at a whole line-up of upcoming investor conventions as well as detailed analysis of its stock market values, profits and expansion plans. (pure glamour, all this, eh?) Come to think of it, perhaps Kirby Corp investors might, in fact have second thoughts if the corporation was honest about the environmental, economic and social disasters the Kirby Corp leaves in its wake.

And you know me, - being very concerned about the bottom line of business investments being wagered by the rich-piggiest one-percenters oil-business investors, I took it upon myself to search out the Texas news media to see how Kirby Corps Nathan E Stewart disaster was playing out in the Texas media.

Well I must say that I am shocked, SHOCKED, -just like the Kirby Corp website, not a single mention! Anywhere! Just imagine, one of Texas' biggest corporations, currently spending, -I'm told- more than $40,000,000 on sopping up its Public Relations credibility, and its poor, downtrodden pitiful investors none the wiser....

So I gave the Houston Chronicle a call today, and they took off after the story like a dog after a bone.. Somebody had to let the cat out of the bag...