Oil drilling is needed
To the editor:
Before we go too far down the Yellow Brick Road to Euphoria with the Hands Across the Sanders, here are a few facts.
Florida has excluded drilling for oil in its tens of thousands of square miles of shallow water with the objective of protecting its beaches and its hospitality industry. The proof that this incredibly selfish and shortsighted policy is totally wrong is that oil IS on Florida beaches and that resorts, even in locations as yet unaffected, are reporting cancellations.
There are about 800 wells off Louisiana, all but a handful in shallow water. The number of these shallow wells that have experienced a major spill in the last 50 years is ZERO! Likewise in the shallow North Sea in the last fifty years, there has been no major spill. Now of course the fact that for the last fifty years, shallow water drilling has been 100 percent safe, it is not impossible that there could be a spill in the future. If so, common sense would indicate that it would be much easier and less expensive financially and environmentally to cap and clean up a spill in 100 feet of water compared to 5,000 feet. The oil industry has been forced to go ever deeper by its inability to drill in the easier, safer and cheaper shallow continental shelf around our coasts, caused by these misguided folks who have exerted the pressures that have resulted directly in this disaster.
Mr. Heim, who in the Beach Bulletin is twice described as a political activist claims, “This is a totally non-political event.” But also involved is the group of beach activists called Oil Coalition by the People and the Environmental Peace and Education Center. Sounds a touch political to me. An email regarding the Cape Coral demonstration states “PAID FOR BY MOVE ON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION.” If there is no politics involved with the hands movement, the John Birch Society is a group of flower arrangers.
You will find many of the people that were on the beach on Saturday at Hands Around the Gas Station, excoriating the wicked oil companies for their windfall profits when gas is $9.99.9 per gallon.
Peter Reid
Fort Myers Beach