Offshore Oil Drilling: An Environmental Bonanza

The American Thinker ^ | April 28, 2009 | Humberto Fontova

[Scanian]

On Earth Day, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis wanted to make Obama's energy policy perfectly clear:

"If we are going to create clean energy industry jobs in this country," they write in a widely syndicated op-ed, "break the stranglehold that foreign oil has on our economy and punish the polluters who are devastating our natural resources, then we've got to be honest about the difficult tasks and tough choices ahead. It's going to mean telling the special interests that their days of dictating energy policy in this country are over."

Indeed, and we can start with groups like the Sierra Club.

"Environmentalists" wake up in the middle of the night sweating and whimpering about offshore oil platforms only because they've never seen what's under them. Louisiana produces almost 30 per cent of America's commercial fisheries. Only Alaska (ten times the size of the Bayou state) produces slightly more. So obviously, Louisiana's coastal waters are immensely rich and prolific in seafood.

These same coastal waters contain 3,200 of the roughly 3,700 offshore production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. These oil production platforms off the Bayou state's coasts also extract 80 percent of the oil and 72 percent of the natural gas produced in the Continental U.S., without causing a single major oil spill in half a century of this process. This record stands despite dozens of hurricanes -- including the two most destructive in North American history, Camille and Katrina -- repeatedly battering the drilling and production structures. So for those interested in evidence over hysterics, by simply looking bayou-ward, a lesson in the "environmental perils" of offshore oil drilling presents itself very clearly.

[trumandogz]

The writer is correct in that we can extract oil with few or no spills off the Louisiana coast however, he does not address the loss of Louisiana wetlands that has been caused by pipeline canals.

These are areas where was a kid in the 1970’s and -80’s I shrimped and fished and there was a distinct delineation between the bayous, bays and canals. Since then I have worked in the same area in the oil industry and that grasslands that was there when I was a kid have disappeared.

And while I have worked down there and understand the importance of oil industry to Louisiana and the world, we do have to recognize that there is a negative environmental impact that results from E&P.

Finally, you can shake your fists in air and scream “Drill Here, Drill Now” but we will not expand domestic drilling anytime soon.

And the reason we will not expand drilling in the USA is not due to a federal ban but rather the current price of oil.

Now, if you want to Drill Here and Drill Now, you must also be willing to pay $3.00 a gallon for gas.

The bottom line is that we have no interest in drilling in the USA for cheap oil.

[1010RD]

That is a thoughtful point and all human activity impacts the environment.

We don't see stasis in nature though. Is the change reversible or avoidable with better engineering?

There can be massive change caused by natural forces that re-scape the landscape. Natural systems change and adapt all the time.

[Wonder Warthog]

"The writer is correct in that we can extract oil with few or no spills off the Louisiana coast however, he does not address the loss of Louisiana wetlands that has been caused by pipeline canals."

I think you will find that far the biggest cause of "loss of wetlands" is the channelization of the Mississippi River, so that its load of "wetland building" silt is dumped into the Gulf's deep water instead of naturally spreading along the coastline as it would normally do. (I'm from Louisiana).

[trumandogz]

I spent a lot of time down in Plaquemines Parish 20 or 30 years ago and since then large areas of wetlands have disappeared.

And yes, much of that has to do with the the river being channeled and the levees but that has been the case with the lower Mississippi for more than a hundred years. The digging of pipeline canals began around fifty years ago and in the last 30 years the wetlands have been devastated.

[Wonder Warthog]

"And yes, much of that has to do with the the river being channeled and the levees but that has been the case with the lower Mississippi for more than a hundred years."

Nope. Not true. The majority of the channelization and extensive "levee-ization" has happened since World War II. (See the "Flood of 1929" as to why).