http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/crist-says-oil-spill-proves-drilling-isnt-safe-withdraws-his-support/1090626
TampaBay.com
St. Petersburg Times
Crist says oil spill proves drilling isn’t safe, withdraws his support
By Marc Caputo, Mary Ellen Klas and Craig Pittman, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
In Print: Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The oil spill spreading across the Gulf of Mexico is sending ripples through Florida and national politics, giving Gov. Charlie Crist a reason to withdraw his support for offshore drilling.
After a 90-minute plane flight Tuesday above the spill, which was spreading in an 80-mile by 42-mile blob, Crist said, “Clearly it could be devastating to Florida if something like that were to occur. It’s the last thing in the world I would want to see happen in our beautiful state.”
He said there is no question now that lawmakers should give up on the idea of drilling off Florida’s coast this year and in coming years. He has said previously he would support drilling if it was far enough from shore, safe enough and clean enough. He said the spill is proof that’s not possible.
“Clearly that one isn’t far enough and that’s about 50 to 60 miles out, it’s clearly not clean enough after we saw what we saw today – that’s horrific – and it certainly isn’t safe enough. It’s the opposite of safe,” Crist said.
Earlier in the day the Legislature’s main advocate of drilling, incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Orlando, said the disaster had him asking questions.
“It causes me to want to examine what happened and how it could have been prevented, and we need to figure that out before we make any further decisions,” said Cannon, who has proposed allowing rigs as close as 3 miles off Florida’s beaches.
Before the spill, Cannon had promised to bring the drilling proposal back up when he becomes speaker next year, touting the millions of dollars in revenue and thousands of jobs that would be created by near-shore drilling.
But Attorney General Bill McCollum, a fellow Republican running for governor, said Cannon should forget passing that bill in 2011 because “he’ll face a veto on my desk if he brings it up the way it is now. I know it’s a revenue producer, but that’s not a good enough reason.”
Meanwhile, in Washington, the spill “is going to have a chilling effect” on a plan by President Barack Obama to open up the eastern gulf to drilling, predicted U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.: “It’s another reminder of the risks of offshore drilling.”
And the senator welcomed Crist back, after the governor in 2008 said he had become more open to the possibility of drilling off Florida. Nelson said he was “very glad the governor realized the realities of what an oil spill could do to the beaches of the Florida coast.”
The oil, which has been oozing out at a rate estimated at 42,000 gallons a day, is coming from the site of the Deepwater Horizon rig.
Deepwater Horizon exploded about 11 p.m. on April 20 and later sank. Eleven members of the 126-member crew remain missing and are presumed dead. The cause of the explosion at the rig remains under investigation.
Efforts to close off the leak using robot submarines have so far failed. Other options for ending the leak could take longer – up to three months, according to U.S. Coast Guard officials.
The marshes of southern Louisiana and Mississippi appear to face the most immediate risk from the spill because they are closest to it, oceanographers say. However, if the leaking oil drifts far enough east to get caught in the gulf’s powerful loop current, it could wind up coating beaches in the Florida Keys and then be swept north along the state’s Atlantic coast.
New Jersey Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg said the spill calls into question the credibility of safety claims by the oil industry. In a letter citing government figures, they said that since 2006 there have been 509 fires on rigs in the gulf, causing at least two fatalities and 12 serious injuries – all before Deepwater Horizon.
“Big Oil has perpetuated a dangerous myth that coastline drilling is a completely safe endeavor, but accidents like this are a sober reminder just how far that is from the truth,” the two senators said.
Despite the spill, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday that President Barack Obama is still sticking to his plan to open up part of the eastern gulf and areas of the Atlantic seaboard to oil drilling.
Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report, which also includes information from the Associated Press.
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http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/oil-spill-in-gulf-could-threaten-florida/1090491
TampaBay.com
Oil spill in gulf could threaten Florida
By Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, April 27, 2010
An image taken from a NASA satellite on Sunday shows the Mississippi Delta on the tip of Louisiana at the center. The oil slick is a silvery swirl to the right.
[Associated Press]
On Monday, weathered oil is seen near the coast of Louisiana from a leaking pipeline caused by last week’s explosion and collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the gulf.
An oil spill from a rig that sank off the coast of Louisiana is threatening marshes and beaches across the Gulf Coast, and unless it’s contained it could wind up tainting the Florida Keys and perhaps the state’s Atlantic coast, oceanography experts said Monday.
As of Monday, the slick was about 48 miles by 39 miles, lying some 30 miles off the coast of Louisiana. So far high winds have kept the spill away from land. It’s about 80 miles from the nearest Florida beaches in Pensacola.
But the owner of the rig has been unable to shut off the oil flowing from 5,000 feet below the surface, so the slick continues to grow.
The marshes of southern Louisiana and Mississippi appear to face the most immediate risk from the spill because they are closest to it, said George Crozier, director of the Dauphin Island Sea Laboratory in Mobile, Ala.
What happens after that depends on how quickly the owners of the rig can shut off the flow of oil. On Sunday they began using robot submarines to try to shut off a valve called a blowout preventer on a leaking pipe deep underwater. If that fails, then they will drill new wells on either side of the leak to relieve the pressure there – a process that could take months.
“If it goes on for four months, then yeah, we’ve got a problem,” Crozier said.
“But if they’re able to shut it down after a day or two, then the risk is minimal.”
“We can only hope that they can make that sucker stop very soon,” said Wilton “Tony” Sturges , a retired Florida State University oceanographer. The winds that would push the spill toward Tampa Bay’s beaches do not normally start until midsummer, he noted.
Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are predicting that by today the slick will be pushed more toward the east, away from the Panhandle but pointed more toward Florida’s peninsula.
Robert Weisberg, a University of South Florida oceanographer who specializes in studying the gulf, said that while the Panhandle may be safe, he is concerned that if the winds push it far enough to the east, the oil slick could be caught in the gulf’s powerful loop current. The loop current flows north from Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula but then makes a clockwise turn and flows south.
If that happens, Weisberg warned, then the oil could be carried “toward the Keys and points up the east coast.”
Florida Department of Environmental Protection officials are monitoring the spill, said DEP spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller, but “at this time there is not believed to be an immediate threat to Florida’s waters.”
Federal officials say they are doing their best to keep the growing oil slick from damaging any of the state’s beaches or marshes. “Our goal is to continue to fight this spill as far offshore as possible,” U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said at a news conference Monday.
One idea: Put a dome over the leaks to catch oil and route it to the surface, where it could be contained. That has worked before with shallow wells. No one knows if it would work 5,000 feet below the surface.
A pod of sperm whales was spotted near the slick on Sunday. At this point no one knows what effect the spill may have on them, although there is a risk of respiratory and eye irritation, or stomach and kidney problems if they ingest the oil, said Teri Rowles, coordinator of NOAA’s marine mammal stranding program.
Planes that were dropping chemicals that break down the oil were told to steer clear of the whales. The chemicals, known as dispersants, can be as toxic to mammals as the oil itself, marine biologist Jackie Savitz told the New York Times. So far there are no reports of any dead or injured animals in or near the slick.
The oil, which has been leaking at a rate estimated at 42,000 gallons a day, is coming from the site of the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded about 11 p.m. on April 20 and later sank. Eleven members of the 126-member crew remain missing and are presumed dead. The cause of the explosion at the rig, which was under contract to BP, remains under investigation.
Initially Coast Guard officials said there appeared to be no leak from the sunken rig. But on Sunday they discovered oil was in fact leaking from pipes deep beneath the surface.
The rig’s owner, Transocean Inc., noted in a news release Monday that the rig – now on the sea floor about 1,500 feet northwest of the well center – was fully insured for $560 million. Transocean is the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor.
Information from the New York Times and the New Orleans Times-Picayune was used in this report.
