Memory of 1969 disaster colors current oil drilling debate

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For decades, giant drilling rigs off the Texas andLouisiana coastlines have plumbed the Gulf of Mexico for vast oiland gas riches, creating jobs, bolstering state revenues andperpetuating a vibrant social structure in coastal communities.
To the West, drilling rigs also operate off the Pacific shorelinenear Santa Barbara, Calif., but to many residents, they are vilereminders of a 1969 blowout on an offshore rig that spewed a giantoil slick into the Pacific. The ecological disaster contributed tothe creation of Earth Day the following year.
"It still has an impact on our consciousness," says LindaKrop, an environmental attorney in Santa Barbara. "You don'tsee oil on the beach any more but it's very high in people'sawareness and their concern about any more development."
The experiences in California and the Gulf Coast states offercontrasting case studies as $4-a-gallon gasoline accelerates callsfor vastly expanded offshore drilling to boost U.S. oil and gassupplies. Offshore drilling is currently permitted off four GulfCoast states, Alaska and a sliver of California but is bannedelsewhere in the United States.
President Bush and presumed Republican presidential nominee JohnMcCain reopened the national debate over offshore drilling lastweek by calling on Congress to lift the ban that prohibits new oiland gas production off most of the East and West coasts and asection of the Gulf Coast below Florida.
The proposals generated a fierce push-back from many Democrats andenvironmental groups, who accused Bush and McCain of being in thepockets of Big Oil.
McCain's rival, Sen. Barack Obama, noted Friday in Jacksonvillethat McCain had once favored the ban and charged McCain withviolating the "bipartisan consensus" that had protectedFlorida's coastline for decades.
"The politics may have changed, but the facts haven't,"Obama said. "Offshore drilling would not lower gas pricestoday, it would not lower gas prices next year and it would notlower gas prices five years from now.''
Although continued reliance on fossil fuel is increasingly indisfavor because of global warming, there are signs that Americansare becoming more receptive to increased oil and gas production inthe United States as gasoline prices go through the roof. Amajority of Americans — 57 percent — favor offshoreexploration in now-prohibited areas to reduce gas prices, accordingto a Gallup Poll.
One prominent change of heart came from Florida Gov. Charlie Crist,who abandoned his support for the ban to advocate exploration ofoil and gas off Florida's coastline. The Republican governor hasbeen mentioned as a possible McCain running mate.
"Floridians are suffering," said Crist, who was skeweredby Democrats and newspaper editorials for the reversal. "Whenyou're paying over $4 a gallon for gas, you have to wonder whetherthere might be additional resources to bring that price down."
Floridians have strongly opposed opening Gulf Coast waters to theoil industry, fearing that offshore drilling could hurt the state'spristine beaches and $65 billion-a-year tourism industry. Butgasoline costs are clearly having an impact on public sentiments.
Larry White, the executive director of the Bradenton AreaConvention and Visitors Bureau on Florida's Gulf Coast, said thearea depends on its pristine beaches but is also affected by risinggas prices. He said 70 percent of the area's tourists drive all theway to the Bradenton area -- many of them from Texas.
"I want to protect my beaches," he said. "But if wedon't get some relief they're going to say, 'I can't afford tocome.' "
Offshore drilling has long been permitted off the other Gulf Coaststates -- Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas -- butassessments of the impact differ sharply, depending on theperspective.
The Sierra Club and other environmental groups say offshoredrilling and coastal pipelines endanger wetlands, marshes and sealife, pollute the water with industrial toxins and pose a constantdanger of producing oil spills.
"Increased drilling offshore would really be step backward forus," said Oliver Bernstein, an Austin, Texas-based nationaldeputy press secretary for the Sierra Club.
But Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who oversees offshorelands and is also responsible for oil spill cleanups, says thatoffshore drilling is an essential part of Texas' oil-based economyand scoffs at assertions of environmental risks.
"I follow this debate and I just shake my head," he saidin a telephone interview. "It's amazing how stupid some peoplecan be. There were valid environmental objections to offshoredrilling but they were valid 30 years ago."
Revenue from mineral leases in the Gulf of Mexico go into Texas'$25 billion permanent school fund. They generated $51.9 million infiscal 2007.
At least 120 companies are operating off the four Gulf Coast Statesthat permit offshore drilling, producing roughly 1.3 millionbarrels of oil a day, about 25 percent of the U.S. domesticproduction. More than 3,900 platforms are scattered across GulfCoast waters.
Most of the activity is centered off of Texas and Louisiana, two ofthe nation's oil-producing giants, each with a rich history ofoffshore exploration. Consequently, the prospect of increasingoffshore production has wide acceptance among state politicalleaders and rank-and-file citizens.
Offshore wells started sprouting below the two state's shorelinesin the 1930s and 1940s, producing generations of workers and oilexplorers. Robert Gramling, a professor at the University ofLouisiana at Lafayette and an expert in offshore production, saidmany workers come from other states since a standard shift is twoweeks on and two weeks off.
"We've got 60 years of gradual ramping up of thisindustry," he said. "There is nobody in business whodoesn't know somebody who works offshore or has workedoffshore."
Offshore drilling has occurred over several decades around Alaska'svast coast, including Cook Inlet near Anchorage, Bristol Bay insouthwest Alaska, and the forbidding Beaufort and Chukchi seas atthe top of the state.
The drilling has been hotly controversial at times, and remains sotoday. In salmon-rich Bristol Bay, the Bush administration hasscheduled an offshore lease sale for 2011, even though controversyprompted the government to buy back leases sold in the bay in 1988.
In the Arctic, the local government, Native whale hunters andenvironmental groups have at least temporarily blocked Shell'soffshore drilling plans. The company on Friday announced it wasgiving up on hopes to begin drilling this year in the Beaufort Seaas the issue remains tied up in a federal appeals court in SanFrancisco.
For the most part, Alaska's oil is produced on land rather thanoffshore. However, government geologists believe remote waters suchas the Chukchi Sea, which spans between Alaska and Russia, couldhold billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet ofnatural gas.
Oil companies led by Shell spent a staggering $2.7 billion forChukchi Sea acreage at a federal lease sale in February.
Twenty-two older drilling platforms that began operating before theU.S ban was imposed in 1990 still remain in production off theCalifornia coastline. But state political leaders led by RepublicanGov. Arnold Schwarzenegger strongly oppose new drilling.
Oversight of offshore leases is the responsibility of the MineralsManagement Service of the Department of Interior, which has a teamof 60 inspectors who fly to lease sites each day in helicopters toinspect rigs for safety and environmental compliance.
Chris Oynes, associate director of the Minerals Management Service,said that advances in drilling technology and safety features, manyof which were ordered after the 1969 spill in California, havedrastically curtailed the threat of environmental mishaps. Onedevice is a safety valve inserted 100 feet below the ocean floorthat can be turned off to halt the flow of oil if workers have toabandon an endangered rig.
An estimated 3 million gallons of oil have spilled from oil and gasoperations in 73 incidents between 1980 and 1999, according toOynes' agency. Environmental groups say the spills illustrate theecological dangers of offshore drilling, but Oynes said the lastsignificant spill was the 1969 blowout.
Patterson says his office records about 500 minor spills a year inTexas from vessels or off-loading incidents but said he does notremember a spill related to offshore drilling.
Lesley Clark of the McClatchy Washington Bureau and Wesley Loy ofthe Anchorage Daily News contributed.