S26 E7: Epilogue — The Spell of The Sea | "The Outlaw Ocean"
The Expert Witness from Uncover
CBC
4.5 • 10.9K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2024
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When a ship inadvertently spills oil, it’s big news. But every three years, ships intentionally dump more oil than the Exxon Valdez, and BP spills combined. This episode highlights a vexing and woefully under-discussed problem. It is made possible by corrupt ship captains who use a so-called “Magic Pipe” that dumps oil discreetly under the water line rather than disposing of it on land as legally required. To learn about this problem, the episode tells the story of Carnival’s Caribbean Princess cruise ship, which used such a pipe and was caught, convicted and hit with the biggest fine in history. This case is set in a broader context of other forms of at-sea dumping, such as plastic pollution, and highlights how the sea has long — and perilously — been viewed as a bottomless trash can. Guest Interviews: Annie Leonard, CEO of Greenpeace, creator of “The Story of Plastic” Richard Udell, DOJ Prosecutor on the Caribbean Princess Case.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | How do our job? How do you solve a crime in reverse when you believe that someone was murdered but have no clue who the victim was? |
| 0:08.0 | We have to do our job and we have to find out who did they kill if if possible how are we going to do that. |
| 0:19.0 | I'm Jake Halpern and this is deep cover, The Nameless Man. |
| 0:25.0 | Listen on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. |
| 0:31.0 | This is a CBC podcast. Oh, I took a trip to this tiny spit of an island called Carlos a third, which is the southernmost point of Patagonia, |
| 1:08.5 | so way down on the bottom of the planet. It's a strange sanctuary that the government has set aside for |
| 1:20.4 | whale scientists to observe an assortment of different types of whales that seem for reasons |
| 1:27.0 | they're not entirely sure to come to the island and nest and mate and rest. |
| 1:35.0 | One night you know I woke up. |
| 1:36.0 | One night you, I woke up, couldn't sleep and climbed out of my little tent and |
| 1:48.0 | right in front of me in the bay there were 12 to 15 sperm whales and they were sleeping. |
| 1:56.0 | As the whales sleep, they inhale, they begin to sink down into the water. Sometimes they sink and |
| 2:07.8 | float for upwards of 20 minutes, and then they float back up to the surface and they exhale. |
| 2:21.0 | And the exhale is this long geyser of mist. |
| 2:27.3 | I was so close that I could smell their breath. |
| 2:30.8 | You know, I could smell the exhale. |
| 2:35.0 | They're at the surface only for about six seconds, |
| 2:38.0 | and then they sink again. The sense of marvel I had at that moment had a little after taste of dread and it's a dread that I experienced throughout this reporting. |
| 3:00.0 | It's the dread of how the hell am I going to render this to people who haven't witnessed it because it's going to sound made up. |
| 3:10.0 | You know, just how odd and mysterious and foreign and wondrous it can be Oh, uh, oh, oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, oh, oh, oh, oh, |
| 3:35.0 | Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, |
| 3:45.0 | oh, oh, oh, oh, Episode 7, the Spell of the Sea. |
... |
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