Eyes on the Gulf

What a difference a few days can make.

Reported as an explosion and leak at some distant oil rig in the gulf last week, this “event” as top government and BP company officials euphemistically call it occurring in the Gulf of Mexico now seems as ominous as a Category 5 hurricane.

In fact, this event is to oil spills what Mount Everest is to molehills.

This is the equivalent of a giant convenience store gas island being skinned, the pumping holes opened by yards and the taps turned wide open, pumping without end.

But pumping crude oil, not gasoline, into one of the most valuable ecosystems on the planet, certainly in this nation and pumping hundreds of thousands of barrels per day.

From the time this is written until you kind readers glance over it on Thursday morning, more than half a million barrels of crude oil will have gushed into the gulf waters.

And that is just over the past couple of days. This rig has been leaking since last week.

This is no Exxon Valdez. This is Exxon Valdez on steroids.

That a country that can land a man on the moon, develop a bomb accurate within inches from miles away, but can not have in place the ability to cap an oil rig line a mile below the ocean’s surface is baffling.

But it is a key reason that all must assess their position on offshore oil drilling.

There is considerable evidence, offered again and again by proponents, that drilling for oil, be it on land or water, is safer and more environmentally conscious than maybe two decades or so ago.

But how environmentally conscious it could be seems debatable for there not to exist a contingency plan in the event of an explosion and leak of the nature that occurred last week.

The idea of free markets hinges on a sense of corporate and personal responsibility and accountability.

After decades of drilling in the gulf for an action-ready plan in place to address such an emergency quickly to not be in place, whether the plan comes from the private or public sector renders the BP “event” suitable for framing with the tales of Wall Street greed we observe seemingly without end.

And the tragedy of this event is that it may have the same kind of long-term impact that credit default swaps and the housing bubble has had on the overall economy.

Suddenly at the beginning of the week emergency management officials were sounding the warning that this may be something that literally sticks around for years.

Not days or weeks or months, but potentially years.

The price tag could very well run into the millions. BP has said it would set aside a contingency fund of some $25 million to impacted states to handle claims, but that would barely skim the restoration of impacted Louisiana salt marshes.

Along the coast, some of the most environmentally sensitive areas could be hugely impacted at a crucial time.

Birds are now beginning to migrate and the St. Joseph Bay Buffer and Aquatic Preserve is just one of the spots between here and New Orleans that is on state or national birding trails.

Recruitment and reproduction of a host of marine species – for instance scallops – occurs in the spring months and there are critical estuaries, salt marshes and reefs up and down the gulf coast that could be potentially harmed or destroyed by the sheen of oil which was reportedly east of Mobile Bay by Tuesday morning.

 And if, as some predict, the oil reaches the gulf currents loop, this could spread across the gulf coast of Florida to the Keys within days, a frightening scenario.

The oil leak comes at a time when the ecosystem it is spreading toward is vulnerable, in critical condition.

This is the net ban raised by a factor of 10 for Florida fishermen and the New Orleans fishing industry was seen as important in the rebounding of that area’s economy since Hurricane Katrina.

Development and rising seas – as researched by a Louisiana State University professor who uses the Buffer Preserve as one research site – has already put critical estuaries and marine breeding grounds at risk.

The feds have closed wide swaths of fishing areas and put species off limits for longer and longer periods.

When emergency management officials and fishermen on the water agree that this could have long-term impacts felt for years the heart sinks.

This could be the final death knell for a way of life that has sustained this region’s economy for centuries.

And so the question is posed – is the risk that was once an abstract but is now too real worth that kind of havoc. Does the economic development equation really balance in this instance?

Is this a wake-up call about our fascination and love affair with oil?

About whether we should be devoting precious and shrinking resources to alternative energy sources instead of drilling for oil in places on the globe that are simply too valuable, unique and sensitive to risk the kind of fallout that could be experienced in the coming months and years from this oil “event.”

Such places are a finite number and there are no do-overs.

This is a dicey and critical time for the area on that globe we have chosen to call home.

Community and a sense of common purpose will be important as we ponder significant questions in the trying days and months ahead.