Guba
Contributor
There are so many factors to address, it's almost impossible to know where to begin.
1) The Gulf of Mexico coasts look the way they do because 11 river systems with high silt loads empty into it, not because of offshore drilling. For example, the water off the coast of Texas is stained brown because rivers run through over a thousand miles of the Permian "Texas Redbeds" which produce low density silt that goes all the way to the Gulf. Once you get beyond the alluvial fan of those river systems, the water is Caribbean blue (about 20 miles or so, depending upon currents). Incidentally, this is precisely where the highest density of offshore platforms are...nearly 4000 of them.
2) One of those platforms is directly adjacent to the Flower Gardens Banks National Marine Sanctuary (did someone say that Florida is the ONLY state with a national underwater preserve???). This oil facility has been in operation for a couple of decades and has had virtually no impact upon the richness of the species diversity of the reef system, other than perhaps to enhance it! It's certainly strange that we'll spend millions of dollars to sink a decommissioned ship and hail it as as a great artificial reef, but condemn the idea of an oil platform that does the same thing while providing a desperately needed natural resource. By the way, the FGBNMS is so incredibly healthy, it serves as a benchmark reef system for practically all reef ecosystems on the planet. For comparison, the benthic cover of the Flower Gardens is about 57 percent. By comparison, the Florida NMS is about 36 percent.
3) Oil drilling and spill prevention techniques have improved light years since IXTOC I. While accidents and natural disasters are possible, the record is incredibly better than it was and continues to develop all the time.
4) Those "tar balls" on the beaches of Galveston are not the result of offshore drilling. They are more associated with improper (and illegal) purging of tankers that frequent the area's refinement ports. (By the way, these tankers deliver billions of barrels of FOREIGN oil every year.) However, the mentioned pollution is a product of shipment rather than drilling. If the question is whether to allow DRILLING offshore, it won't be a problem. However, if someone mentions building a refinery, then you might have grounds to get upset.
5) All the talk about increased drilling and exploration really needs to consider what we expect. De we think that we can increase our production enough to become self-reliant using oil as our main energy source. That's ludicrious. It is, after all, a depletable resource. However, should increased production be considered as a time-buying strategy until we can develop other sources? Absolutely. We got into this mess because we didn't heed the warning sufficiently from the seventies.
Finding more oil domestically can only help diminish a dilemma that will have to be conquered someday. We have to diminish our dependence on the stuff, and that's an undeniable fact. But to keep the economy healthy enough to develop other technologies, we'd better be willing to do what it takes to stay strong until we do so.
1) The Gulf of Mexico coasts look the way they do because 11 river systems with high silt loads empty into it, not because of offshore drilling. For example, the water off the coast of Texas is stained brown because rivers run through over a thousand miles of the Permian "Texas Redbeds" which produce low density silt that goes all the way to the Gulf. Once you get beyond the alluvial fan of those river systems, the water is Caribbean blue (about 20 miles or so, depending upon currents). Incidentally, this is precisely where the highest density of offshore platforms are...nearly 4000 of them.
2) One of those platforms is directly adjacent to the Flower Gardens Banks National Marine Sanctuary (did someone say that Florida is the ONLY state with a national underwater preserve???). This oil facility has been in operation for a couple of decades and has had virtually no impact upon the richness of the species diversity of the reef system, other than perhaps to enhance it! It's certainly strange that we'll spend millions of dollars to sink a decommissioned ship and hail it as as a great artificial reef, but condemn the idea of an oil platform that does the same thing while providing a desperately needed natural resource. By the way, the FGBNMS is so incredibly healthy, it serves as a benchmark reef system for practically all reef ecosystems on the planet. For comparison, the benthic cover of the Flower Gardens is about 57 percent. By comparison, the Florida NMS is about 36 percent.
3) Oil drilling and spill prevention techniques have improved light years since IXTOC I. While accidents and natural disasters are possible, the record is incredibly better than it was and continues to develop all the time.
4) Those "tar balls" on the beaches of Galveston are not the result of offshore drilling. They are more associated with improper (and illegal) purging of tankers that frequent the area's refinement ports. (By the way, these tankers deliver billions of barrels of FOREIGN oil every year.) However, the mentioned pollution is a product of shipment rather than drilling. If the question is whether to allow DRILLING offshore, it won't be a problem. However, if someone mentions building a refinery, then you might have grounds to get upset.
5) All the talk about increased drilling and exploration really needs to consider what we expect. De we think that we can increase our production enough to become self-reliant using oil as our main energy source. That's ludicrious. It is, after all, a depletable resource. However, should increased production be considered as a time-buying strategy until we can develop other sources? Absolutely. We got into this mess because we didn't heed the warning sufficiently from the seventies.
Finding more oil domestically can only help diminish a dilemma that will have to be conquered someday. We have to diminish our dependence on the stuff, and that's an undeniable fact. But to keep the economy healthy enough to develop other technologies, we'd better be willing to do what it takes to stay strong until we do so.
