[Tagging] Oil Spill Tagging

[Paul Johnson]

On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:26:12 +0100, Steve Doerr wrote:

> I see that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
> (<http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/66538123>) is tagged as:
> 
> hazard = oilspill
> landuse = cemetery
> name = oilspill

I'm in favor of hazard=oilspill as a closed area, with placement similar 
to tidal shorelines around the approximate boundaries of the spill.  I 
wouldn't name the oil spills unless they're well-known by a particular 
name, though (name="Deepwater Horizon" hazard=oilspill, for example).  
It's definitely not a cemetary.  Oil spills are long-term, geographically 
stable events that tend to stick around on a scale of years to decades.  
On land, the depth of the oil spill may not be apparent from the surface, 
even if it affects a large area.

Full disclosure:  I'm currently in, and considering a move to Tulsa, 
whose suburbs are   It's not uncommon to find people in rural areas here 
to generate their own electricity (because rural electrification forgot 
about them) and use their own above-ground cistern to collect rainwater 
(because the local oil drilling company contaminated the water table, 
thus drinking the groundwater is a slow, painful death by hydrocarbon 
poisoning).