A letter from the Editor
April 21st, 2010 – less than one month from President Obama saying that he would consider opening up the waters to off shore drilling, the worst environmental disaster in the history of the United States happened. An oil rig off the coast of Texas owned by British Patroleum (BP) caught on fire, collapsed, and fell to the ocean floor. Millions of gallons of oil are spilling into the Gulf of Mexico by the day with no hope of closing off the well for at least a month, if not three as indicated by reports coming from BP.
“BP is considered the most environmentally friendly of major oil companies” – A green and yellow sunburst is the color of their logo reminding of this every time we pull up to the pump. The truth is that BP had no plan in place for a disaster such as this. “BP doesn’t carry insurance against this type of mishap”, because they figured that it was worth the risk. They are ill prepared and have shown a track record of incidents proving this.
BP has had its share of recent high-profile accidents:
_ An explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City in 2005 killed 15 people and injured 170. Regulators in October hit BP with a record $87 million fine for failing to correct safety hazards at the plant. BP has formally contested the fine.
_ More than 200,000 gallons of oil spilled from a BP pipeline in Alaska in March 2006, the largest-ever spill on Alaska’s oil-rich North Slope. BP paid about $20 million in fines, including $4 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for Arctic environmental research.
_ Last year, BP paid nearly $2 million in fines for not operating with the proper equipment at oil fields along the North Slope.- The Associated Press
In an exploration plan and environmental impact analysis filed with the federal government in February 2009, BP said it had the capability to handle a “worst-case scenario” at the Deepwater Horizon site, which the document described as a leak of 162,000 barrels per day from an uncontrolled blowout — 6.8 million gallons each day. – Associated Press
Continued below
The battle against off shore drilling has never been more intense than it has been within the last two years. Here in Florida, members of the congress are holding steady with their intention to bring oil companies to the coast of Florida as soon as they can. Soon to be Speaker of the House, Rep. Dean Cannon (R-Orlando) and soon to be President of the Senate, Senator Mike Haridopolus (R- Melbourne) are true believers that oil drilling is still the way and have “envisioned using oil drilling leases off Florida’s gulf coast to fill a $6 billion budget hole expected next year.“
Even with thousands of people gathering on Florida beaches last February, 2010 in protest not only of the Florida Congress opening up the waters to oil companies – Cannon introduced a bill in the past two years to promote his agenda on oil, but also the U.S. Government that is including off-shore drilling in the Senate Energy Bill to voted on in the next coming weeks.
Governor Charlie Crist waffled two years ago on his stance against off shore drilling when he was on the short list to be the Vice Presidential pick on Senator McCain’s ticket. Only recently has he come back to his original position of not allowing drilling along the coast. U.S. 2010 Senate candidate, Marco Rubio, a strong supporter of “Drill Here, Drill Now!” (video) has only declared yesterday that he will wait before passing judgement and will “rethink the technologies of drilling off-shore”
Ah yes, the drilling technologies…it always comes down to that. It’s a hard argument when the answer is that we can always improve technology and make it better. “That won’t happen here” is the logic that occurs when our egos do all of the reasoning and give us the confidence that allows us to think that we can control such things. Last year when I met with my State Representative, Doug Holder (R-Sarasota), I asked him why he voted to bring off-shore drilling to our coast. His responded by saying, “All I was hoping for is to open up the conversation.” This year when I asked him why he voted to support off-shore drilling off our coast again, he told me that technology is getting better and that he wants to have the opportunity for exploration.
Well, let’s talk about the technology. The oil rig that burned and spilled millions of gallons of oil in the Timor Sea, Australia last August was brand new technology. In February 2009, the contractor was awarded a contract worth $75m for the installation of the offshore facilities for the Montara field development, Australia. They finished in the structure on August 7th. 2009. By August 21st the rig caught fire and started leaking oil into the Timor Sea. It wasn’t until November that the crews were finally getting close to sealing the well. November 1st, 2009, the platform caught on fire again. Finally by December 4th, 2010 – the platform was formally condemned. The rig was only five months old. For five months millions of gallons of oil leaked into the sea off of the coast of Australia. That was new technology.
As the facts start to come in about the BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, my guess is that those who are proponents of oil drilling will attribute it to faulty equipment that was outdated. People like Holder and Rubio will say that they will demand better technology to be used here and they would never let something like the oils spill off the coast of Louisiana happen here. But the truth is that technology is not the problem. No matter what kind of drilling system we build and place off our coasts will could never discount the possibility of human error. Faulty equipment starts of with someone making a mistake, cutting corners to try to cut costs, or just inexperience. These people will weigh the time it takes to correct something against their production deadlines and bet on the odds that nothing won’t happen.
With $209M paid in fines over the last 5 years, BP has even batted an eye. To me, it shows that they can’t even police themselves. And what happened to the people who do police them? If I had a driving record like BP has an accident record, then odds are my drivers license would be taken away and I would be forbidden to drive again – that is if I was not in jail. BP and other oil companies alike who have similar histories are fined. But the next day, they are back at work again. The company who was responsible for the Australia accident is back building another platform. Tell me, what are they going to do that is so different from what they did before.
Now the questions remain, what will the lawmakers now do? Will U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, (R- South Carolina) remove off-shore drilling from the energy bill that is waiting to pass in the Senate? Will candidates like Rubio decide to back off of the “Drill Here, Drill Now” mentality? Will Florida Governor Crist hold firm to his recent stand against drilling off of our coast? And will our local State Representative Holder actually require the oil companies to prove themselves BEFORE they ever get a chance to drill in any waters again?
And the real question is, “Will President Obama stand up and say, “Not Here, Not Now” and demand that oil companies concentrate on what they already have – making sure that accidents like this will not happen again? And that everyone on the rigs in existence are not only qualified and retrained, but also policed by a stronger arm. Will our President say that we cannot tolerate this from any company that operates on our land and our waters?
And the question for us is, “When will we stop believing that we can find a simple fix to a complex problem?”
