Hurricane damage is one more reason not to expand offshore drilling
On Monday 10/6, the Post-dispatch quoted information the AP gathered from US government reports about the extent of pollution damage along the US Gulf coast caused by Hurricane Ike. Around 50 oil well platforms in the gulf were destroyed with dire consequences for the nearby coastline.
The AP article states, “At least 500,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf, the marshes, bayous, and bays of Louisiana and Texas”. Further, the AP’s analysis found that,”by far, the most common contaminant left if Ike’s wake was crude oil!”
Normally this-all to common-tragic result left by a natural disaster to an important part of America’s energy sector, would be viewed as an byproduct of energy production in a hazardous enviornment, a high but unavoidable cost to bringing energy to market in a difficult enviornment with considerable efforts by industry to mitigate the resulting damages to our coasts. In short, the oil industry did it’s best to prevent oil pollution but it coould not completely succeed against a massive hurrican such as Ike.
On a limited basis the environment can probably withstand a few such unavoidable accidents, but the republican party has made massively increased and virtually unrestricted, offshore drilling the conerstone of what passes for their “energy policy”. They cavilierly dismiss all the obvious dangers of drilling for oil off our fragile coastlines by claiming they can control all the risks.. This dispite all the evidence we have just been shown of the need to develop offshore resources as carefully and thoughtfully as possible!
By proudly chanting it at republican gatherings-and even reminding America during the recent VP debate as to the correct way to spew the mindless McCain/Palin mantra of “Drill, baby drill!”-this bizarre duo of an aging earstwhile maverick and a surbanite soccer mom turned governor with little knowledge of the world outside of Alaska, show how clueless they are about how to lead America forward!
I do have to give McCain, the self-admitted arch enemy of government regulators, full credit for lowering the price of oil greatly-even without drilling along the coast-by allowing unregulated banks to bring our economy to it’s knees! That, at least, has worked!
Richard A. Orr
St. Charles
Spellcheck Richard, Spellcheck!!!!
Amazing Richard. You put two and two together and got five.
Did you actually READ the AP story. Did you actually COMPREHEND that the majority of the 500,000 gallons of crude oil that was spilled during Ike came from ONSHORE facilities. Yes, 52 platforms were destroyed and another 32 were damaged, out of the roughly 3800 platforms in the gulf. And yet there was only one confirmed spill of 8,400 gallons from a damaged platform, that dissipated without a trace due to the high winds and waves caused by the storm.
In comparison, over 9 million gallons of oil was spilled during Katrina, again mostly from onshore facilities. Most of those spills as with Ike were caused due to flooding from the storm surge, not directly from the force of the hurricane itself. Get your facts straight. If you want to argue that refineries and storage facilities should be moved further inland, then you might have a point.
Here’s another newsflash for you. We don’t have hurricanes on the west coast. We also don’t get hurricanes in ANWR.
Baloney Richard. That is one of the dumbest reasons no to drill offshore. Yes drill baby drill. If you want to keep be dependent on foreign oil, then you do it, but I don’t.
Orr, when are you liberals going to start telling the whole story. If you can’t, then pelase keep a lid on it. I am tired of hearing the liberals tell only one side of everything. But then again, that’s what liberals are good at. Telling only one side.
Good points Mad-Mike. Richard needs to know his facts before shooting his mouth. Someting else libs are good.
To Mad_Mikerophony,
You say-”In comparison, over 9 million gallons of oil was spilled during Katrina, again mostly from onshore facilities. Most of those spills as with Ike were caused due to flooding from the storm surge, not directly from the force of the hurricane itself.” Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, 9 million gallons MOSTLY from onshore facilities. Could you parse that into how many million gallons were spilled in offshore relative to onshore facilities? Please cite some verifiable sources.
You go on to say-”We don’t have hurricanes on the west coast. We also don’t get hurricanes in ANWR.” That may be true, but the worst oil spill in history was caused by incompetence and negligence in Prince William sound. The republican Supreme Court just recently cut the damages that Exxon had to pay to a relative pittance. If only the people of Alaska who were damaged by this holocaust on nature and the livelihoods of thousands had friends in a republican administration. Oh well, only the corporations and the superrich get meaningful tax breaks when the republicans are in charge. Reparations? Why that’s socialism!
To JMP,
If it were up to you the only side of any story we hear would come from Talent On Loan From God-Gush Faux Pas, or Showin’ Insanity, or Bull O’rightly. Welcome to the gop cheerleading squad. Your NRA dues have been waived for a year. Other gifts will follow.
What better reason that Hurricaines to expand off shore drilling to areas that aren’t always ground zero every year? By only drilling in the Gulf, we risk disruption and gas prices routinely rise in anticipation of the annual season. If we drilled off the west coast where such storms are rare, we would be able to better withstand storm damage.