Oil Beach

Can the stories of bananas, whales, sea birds, and otters teach us to reconsider the seaport as a place of ecological violence, tied to oil, capital, and trade? San Pedro Bay, which contains the contiguous Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, is a significant site for petroleum shipping and refining as well as one of the largest container shipping ports in the world—some forty percent of containerized imports to the United States pass through this so-called America’s Port. It is also ecologically rich. Built atop a land- and waterscape of vital importance to wildlife, the heavily industrialized Los Angeles Harbor contains estuarial wetlands, the LA River mouth, and a marine ecology where colder and warmer Pacific Ocean waters meet. In this compelling interdisciplinary investigation, award-winning author Christina Dunbar-Hester explores the complex relationships among commerce, empire, environment, and the nonhuman life forms of San Pedro Bay over the last fifty years—a period coinciding with the era of modern environmental regulation in the United States. The LA port complex is not simply a local site, Dunbar-Hester argues, but a node in a network that enables the continued expansion of capitalism, propelling trade as it drives the extraction of natural resources, labor violations, pollution, and other harms. Focusing specifically on cetaceans, bananas, sea birds, and otters whose lives are intertwined with the vitality of the port complex itself, Oil Beach reveals how logistics infrastructure threatens ecologies as it circulates goods and capital—and helps us to consider a future where the accumulation of life and the accumulation of capital are not in violent tension.

"In this engaging interdisciplinary investigation, Christina Dunbar-Hester, a leading scholar in the area of democratic control of technologies, focuses on the relationships between commerce, environment, and nonhuman life forms in San Pedro Bay, which houses the contiguous ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. The harbor is a heavily industrialized area built atop a land- and waterscape that is important for wildlife, containing estuarial wetlands, the LA river mouth, and a marine ecology where colder and warmer Pacific Ocean waters meet. This is a unique spot for industry too--this port complex is amongst the top-ten biggest container ports in the world, and the harbor is also home to major oil operations. Dunbar-Hester, a professor of Science & Technology Studies and Communication at the University of Southern California, centers her account on multispecies life in the period of about 1960 to the present, which coincides with the era of modern environmental regulation in the United States. Focusing on cetaceans, bananas, sea birds, and otters whose lives are intertwined with the vitality of the port complex itself, Dunbar--Hester reveals how logistics infrastructure destroys ecologies as it circulates goods and capital--and helps readers to consider a future where the accumulation of life and the accumulation of capital are not in violent tension"--

Tells the story of a small town's fight against a giant oil company to clean up a massive oil spill.

This comprehensive text is a major synthesis on ecological change in the Gulf of Alaska. It encompasses the structural and annual changes, forces of change, long-ecological changes in the atmosphere and ocean, plankton, fish, birds and mammals, and the effects of the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. With 5 major sections, Long-term Ecological Change in the Northern Gulf of Alaska first describes the physical features, the atmosphere and physical oceanography, the annual production cycle, the forage base for higher animals and trophic transfer, and the adaptations for survival in this changing environment for 9 portal species. Then, the major forces of change are introduced: climate, geophysics, fisheries and harvesting, species interactions, disease and contaminants. Next, the long-term records of change in physical factors and biological populations are presented, as well as the potential reasons for the biological changes. Following is the history of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and its long-term effects. And, finally, the emergent properties of the ecosystem are discussed and an attempt is made to weigh the importance of the major forcing factors in terms of their temporal and spatial scales of influence. * Examines important data on long-term change in the ecosystem and the forcing factors that are responsible for it * Provides an account of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill with emphasis on the long-term effects * Describes the effects of climate change, geophysical change, species interactions, harvesting, disease, the 1989 oil spill, and marine contaminants on key populations of marine organisms