Why Americans distrust their government, part 6

Dear Friends,

Last week there was some more confusion from President Obama, his Department of the Interior and its Minerals Management Service.  Here are a couple of paragraphs from David Dayen at firedoglake.com. 

You really have to parse Barack Obama closely to get the full measure of his words. Here’s what he said last week at his press conference about additional actions on offshore drilling:

Additionally, after reading the report’s recommendations with Secretary Salazar and other members of my administration, we’re going to be ordering the following actions: First, we will suspend the planned exploration of two locations off the coast of Alaska. Second, we will cancel the pending lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico and the proposed lease sale off the coast of Virginia. Third, we will continue the existing moratorium and suspend the issuance of new permits to drill new deepwater wells for six months. And four, we will suspend action on 33 deepwater exploratory wells currently being drilled in the Gulf of Mexico.

All of the actions concerned deepwater wells; there was nothing about wells in more shallow water. And so today, regulators approved a new well in the Gulf of Mexico, ending a ban on shallow-water offshore drilling.

The Minerals Management Service granted a new drilling permit sought by Bandon Oil and Gas for a site about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana and 115 feet below the ocean’s surface. It’s south of Rockefeller State Wildlife Refuge and Game Preserve, far to the west of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that triggered the BP spill.
Obama last week extended a moratorium on wells in deep water like the BP one that blew out a mile below the surface in April and is gushing millions of gallons of oil. But at the same time, the president quietly allowed a three-week-old ban on drilling in shallow water to expire.
“I’m outraged,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director for the Tucson, Ariz.,-based Center for Biological Diversity, after a reporter told him of the new permit. “How is it that shallow water drilling suddenly became safe again?”

The last sentence asks the appropriate question.  As far as I can tell there is no evidence to support the proposition that shallow water drilling is any safer or less likely to cause huge spills than deep water drilling.  Here are a couple of paragraphs from a 2008 article in the Houston Chronicle.

When a Union Oil Co. well six miles off the California coast blew out in January 1969, an estimated 80,000 barrels of crude spewed into the Santa Barbara Channel — fouling beaches and marring the offshore industry's reputation.With the nation now debating whether to open more areas offshore to oil and gas drilling, the oil industry can rightly claim it has avoided a repeat of that catastrophe, even as offshore activity has ballooned.
But offshore operators continue to spill thousands of barrels of oil, fuel and chemicals into federal waters each year, government records show.
Offshore operators have had 40 spills greater than 1,000 barrels since 1964, including 13 in the last 10 years, according to data from the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which oversees exploration and production in federal waters.

More than one spill per year in US waters from 1998 to 2008.  So there are spills all the time.  They just aren't of the magnitude of BP's Deep Horizon well.  There have been two really big spills in my adult life that are instructive as to whether shallower is safer or easier to stop than deeper. 

Chronologically first, is the blowout of the Ixtoe 1 well in the Mexican waters of the Gulf of Mexico in 1979.  The well blewout in June 1979 and the spill was finally stopped in March 1980, ten months and well over 100 million gallons of crude oil later.  That well was in 160 feet of water, not the 5,000 feet that the Deep Horizon well is in. 

The second is the blowout of the Montara oil well off Australia in the Timor Sea in 2009.  It blewout in August and the spewing of oil was finally stopped in November after somewhere between 1.2 million and 9.0 million gallons of crude oil had escaped into the Timor Sea.  That well was drilled in 260 feet of water, not the 5,000 feet that the Deep Horizon well is in.

So the two other largest blowouts on record were from shallow wells that for some reason President Obama thinks are safer.  Why does he continue to listen to big oil experts instead of relying on his own intelligence and common sense?  Why would we trust a government that tells us that shallow wells are ok even if deep wells are not?  Why would we trust a government that is working harder at finding a way to keep drilling than it is at telling us the truth?

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal