{"id":42,"date":"2010-01-07T01:34:28","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T01:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/?p=42"},"modified":"2010-01-07T01:34:28","modified_gmt":"2010-01-07T01:34:28","slug":"special-to-tampa-tribune-reject-nearshore-oil-drilling-by-scott-maddox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/2010\/01\/07\/special-to-tampa-tribune-reject-nearshore-oil-drilling-by-scott-maddox\/","title":{"rendered":"Special to Tampa Tribune: Reject Nearshore Oil Drilling by Scott Maddox"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reject near-shore drilling<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>By SCOTT MADDOX<\/p>\n

Special To The Tampa Tribune<\/p>\n

December, 2009<\/p>\n

In 2008, a super-modern, hi-tech, state-of-the-art oil drilling rig was installed 250 miles off<\/p>\n

the Coast of Australia. As I write this, Australians are grappling with a massive spill that<\/p>\n

stretches more than 85 miles long and covers nearly 9,000 square miles. The latest<\/p>\n

estimates show that hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil have spilled and continue to<\/p>\n

spill from this brand new rig, which burned out of control for at least several weeks.<\/p>\n

The rigs being proposed for Florida won’t be 250 miles from the coastline; they will be a<\/p>\n

few miles from shore.<\/p>\n

If such a spill were to occur even 10 miles off Florida’s coast, the impact would be nearly<\/p>\n

cataclysmic to the state’s fragile ecosystem. Equally devastating would be the impact on<\/p>\n

jobs, taxes and our economy. It would cost taxpayers millions to clean up such a mess<\/p>\n

while scaring away hundreds of thousands of visitors.<\/p>\n

The end result would be to jeopardize economies and set our state budget back by billions<\/p>\n

of dollars.<\/p>\n

On this issue, those who care about our beaches, coastal fisheries, aquaculture and<\/p>\n

ecotourism, as well as raw economics, should all be very concerned about the negative<\/p>\n

impact even a small spill would bring.<\/p>\n

And yes, the spill mentioned above is considered a small spill.<\/p>\n

Further, a recent news report details the fallacy of using “subsea” (a.k.a. “not visible”) rigs<\/p>\n

in the shallow waters off Florida’s coast. Even industry officials now admit that the<\/p>\n

“subsea” or “low horizon” rigs simply won’t work for depths that are found in the Gulf of<\/p>\n

Mexico.<\/p>\n

This begs the question: Are we being told the truth about any of this?<\/p>\n

In the final analysis, while there are some good reasons to consider offshore oil drilling, I<\/p>\n

simply can’t see a good reason to support allowing dangerous oil rigs within swimming<\/p>\n

distance of Florida’s coastline.<\/p>\n

The proposition is all risk and no reward. It will not only put our environment at great risk,<\/p>\n

it will put our economy in grave peril and could hamstring our state’s budget for<\/p>\n

generations to come.<\/p>\n

Our state needs sensible economic and energy policies. Sadly, there are no easy fixes or<\/p>\n

simple solutions to the problems our state faces.<\/p>\n

While we should always be willing to consider all options, sometimes we also need to<\/p>\n

reject ideas that will hurt Florida in the long run. Near-shore drilling is one such idea.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reject near-shore drilling By SCOTT MADDOX Special To The Tampa Tribune December, 2009 In 2008, a super-modern, hi-tech, state-of-the-art oil drilling rig was installed 250 miles off the Coast of Australia. As I write this, Australians are grappling with a massive spill that stretches more than 85 miles long and covers nearly 9,000 square miles. … Continue reading Special to Tampa Tribune: Reject Nearshore Oil Drilling by Scott Maddox<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/43"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefrelieffounders.com\/drilling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}