Finally, a hint of reason is beginning to overcome 'I need my pure ocean view' hysteria:
Environmentalists Say Yes to Offshore Drilling
By ANDREW CLINE
July 12, 2008; Page A9
On the morning of Jan. 28, 1969, a Union Oil drilling site six miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., sprang a leak. The ensuing spill stretched for miles, killed thousands of birds, and gave America the image of wildlife and shorelines covered in black crude. That spill is widely considered to have conceived the modern environmental movement. A year later, the first Earth Day was held, followed by passage of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
After the spill, Santa Barbara residents formed an environmental group called GOO! (Get Oil Out!), one of the first community groups to oppose offshore oil drilling. Thirty-nine years later, GOO! is still around. But this April the group did something astonishing. It publicly supported an oil company's proposal to drill off the coast of Santa Barbara.
M.E. Cohen
Houston-based Plains Exploration and Production Company proposed drilling 22 wells from a platform 4.7 miles from land. It made numerous concessions to the local environmental groups that would curtail drilling in about a decade -- and in the end even the adamantly "no-drilling" crowd agreed that the deal was beneficial for everyone. The Environmental Defense Center, a nonprofit environmental law firm, endorsed the plan. Abe Powell, president of GOO!, told the Los Angeles Times it was "good for the community." Terry Leftgoff, a former GOO! executive director, wrote in the Santa Barbara Independent the deal was "a brilliant proposal that finally gives the public something back: the certain removal of four offshore oil platforms, the decommissioning of a notorious industrial plant, and the reversion of rural land subjugated into oil development back into the public trust as parkland."
When an environmental group formed for the sole purpose of opposing offshore oil drilling warmly embraces a plan to drill off its own coast, you know something important has changed in our culture: Americans have recognized that offshore oil drilling is largely safe.
Since 1975, drilling in the Exclusive Economic Zone (within 200 miles of the U.S. coast) has had a 99.999% safety record, according to the Energy Information Administration, which reports that "only .001 percent of the oil produced has been spilled."
Thanks to technological advances, large spills are rare. Most spills are tiny, only a few feet in diameter. Large tanker spills, such as the Exxon Valdez in 1989, are so infrequent they account for a very small fraction of the oil that winds up in the sea.
A joint study by NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, examining several decades' worth of data, found that more oil seeps into the ocean naturally than from accidents involving tankers and offshore drilling. Natural seepage from underwater oil deposits leaks an average of 62 million gallons a year; offshore drilling, on the other hand, accounted for only 15 million gallons, the smallest source of oil leaking into the oceans.
The vast majority of the oil that finds its way into the sea comes from dry land, NASA found. Runoff from cities, roads, industrial sites and garages deposits 363 million gallons into the sea, making runoff by far the single largest source of oil pollution in the oceans. "Every year oily road runoff from a city of 5 million could contain as much oil as one large tanker spill," notes the Smithsonian exhibit, "Ocean Planet."
The second-largest source of ocean oil pollution was routine ship maintenance, accountable for 137 million gallons a year, NASA found -- more than 2.5 times the amount that comes from tanker spills and offshore drilling combined. But no one is proposing that we ban cargo and cruise ships.
The public may be aware that offshore drilling accidents are infrequent and pose little threat to the environment; this awareness is probably part of the reason why growing numbers of Americans support drilling in formerly protected portions of our coastal waters. Last month, a Zogby poll found 74% of Americans support offshore drilling. That's up from 57% in May, according to a Gallup poll. Even a majority of Democrats support offshore drilling, according to a Rasmussen poll last month.
High gas prices clearly play a role in driving up support for drilling. But the fact that the U.S. coastline has not played host to news footage of sea birds coated in crude since 1989 may play a role, too.
Big oil spills can do long-term ecological damage. But the long-term effects seem to be on the micro rather than the macro scale. In Alaska and Cape Cod, where long-ago oil spills coated the shoreline, the aftereffects are visible only if one goes digging for them. Small creatures such as crabs and shellfish still suffer negative ramifications. But the ecological decimation predicted by environmental groups has not materialized.
Americans, including those at GOO!, are making the judgment that in the right circumstances, the benefits of offshore oil drilling can outweigh the risks of an occasional large spill. Unfortunately, the Democratic Congress remains beholden to environmental activists who oppose a sensible expansion of offshore drilling. If it is possible to find a compromise in Santa Barbara, it should be possible to find one on Capitol Hill as well.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121581714417147413.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
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