More drilling is not the answer – VC Reporter
By admin on May 10, 2010 in News
05/06/2010
There’s an old adage that if we don’t learn from our mistakes, we are destined to repeat them. When it comes to offshore oil drilling or oil usage in general, one can’t help but wonder how many more oil spills it will take before we decide oil drilling is bad and that our co-dependence on oil simply isn’t sustainable. With the burgeoning oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, we must look back in time and remember that this isn’t our first time at bat.
In 1969, Union Oil Platform A, stationed six miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, suffered a blowout and released between 80,000 and 100,000 barrels of oil into the ocean, killing dolphins, seals and more than 10,000 birds.
In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker grounded, spilling 250,000 barrels of crude oil in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, killing an estimated 100,000 to as many as 250,000 birds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 bald eagles and 22 orcas, as well as causing the destruction of billions of salmon and herring eggs. The Exxon spill severely damaged the coastline, and researchers estimate it could take another 10 years to approach restoring it to its previous condition.
As of today, the Transocean Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill is estimated to have leaked 75,000 barrels of oil to date, and with no sure way to cap the leak, is adding 5,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico. Even without hitting the coastline, experts are saying it would rank among the worst ecological disasters in U.S. history.
At this point, the idea of proposing any new drilling anywhere seems ludicrous. Even the Obama administration is backtracking on the president’s proposal for new offshore drilling.
Although California has never experienced a severe disaster such as that which is destined for the Mississippi Delta or what happened to Alaska’s serene coastline, it certainly doesn’t mean we should take our chances. But that isn’t stopping Santa Barbara’s Environmental Defense Center, which has agreed to a controversial plan with oil company Plains Exploration and Production Company (PXP) that will allow for new drilling in California’s waters for the first time since the spill of 1969.
Although the plan, which the center’s attorney says is enforceable, would result in the decommissioning and dismantling of the four most active platforms off the county’s coast over the course of the next 14 years, the risk factors and loopholes of the plan are not worth the energy, literally.
First, the four platforms listed in the proposal already have a finite life, according to a Santa Barbara environmental impact report on the PXP project. That report states that California’s Marine Minerals Service estimated that the oil will dry up and all of the platforms could be removed by 2025.
Second, new drilling means more oil being pumped and an increased risk of an oil spill. The devastating effects of the last three major oil spills should be enough to stop any mulling over the idea of new drilling.
Third, even if the plan is enforceable through legal channels, all PXP will have to do is pay for damages for breach of contract as it continues to drill. And as Coastal Commissioner Sara Wan pointed out, California officials could change their minds in 14 years and support more drilling. This would be the antithesis of the intentions of the proposal and the defense center’s clients, Get Oil Out! and Citizen’s Planning Association of Santa Barbara.
In addition to the problems associated with this plan, in the end, support for it and its passage would mean condoning continued dependence on oil, the root of the problem. If we are drilling, then we aren’t investing in alternative energy sources, and that is problematic.
We think the EDC/PXP proposal is a bad one; and now, even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger agrees. It appears that it won’t be approved by the State Lands Commission, but even this plan’s failure doesn’t equate to success. Until we have fully embraced wind, solar, wave and every other type of energy source, we can continue to expect devastating oil spills and many other problems associated with the true cost of oil.
