McCain Lies About Safety Of Offshore Drilling

As Think Progress points out, McCain is telling a flat-out lie about whether hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused any oil spills.

In fact, the clear satellite evidence of major spills was borne out by final reports. In May 2006, the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) published their offshore damage assessment: “113 platforms totally destroyed, and 457 pipelines damaged, 101 of those major lines with 10″ or larger diameter.”

Unsurprisingly, this devastation caused significant spillage, according to the official report prepared for the MMS by a Norwegian firm:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused 124 Offshore Spills For A Total Of 743,700 Gallons. 554,400 gallons were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 189,000 gallons were refined products from platforms and rigs. [MMS, 1/22/07]

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused Six Offshore Spills Of 42,000 Gallons Or Greater. The largest of these was 152,250 gallons, well over the 100,000 gallon threshhold considered a “major spill.” [MMS, 5/1/06]

In addition, the hurricanes caused disastrous spills onshore throughout southeast Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf Coast as tanks, pipelines, refineries and other industrial facilities were destroyed, for a total of 595 different oil spills. The 9 million gallons reported spilled were comparable with the Exxon Valdez’s 10.8 million gallons, but unlike the Exxon Valdez, were distributed throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, and other Gulf Coast states, many in residential areas.

Writer Craig Pittman at the St. Petersburg Times points out that offshore drilling could destroy the pristine quality of Florida's beaches:

Leatherman has seen what offshore drilling can do to a beach. Texas beaches, for instance, "tend to be the trash can of the gulf." Waste from the western gulf's wells — everything from empty oil drums to tar balls — washes up there.

Allowing drilling in the eastern gulf — a move now touted by President Bush, GOP presidential candidate John McCain and Gov. Charlie Crist — carries risks for the environment as well as for Florida's economy.

Over the past 40 years, oil companies have drilled thousands of wells across the western and central gulf, and there are now about 3,800 offshore structures there. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have been willing to overlook the trash and tar in exchange for cash and jobs.

But Florida's $50-billion tourist industry depends on clean beaches. The slightest taint — say, a Red Tide bloom — can empty the hotels. That's why in the past Florida politicians from both parties have been as quick to embrace drilling as they have been to shake hands with Fidel Castro....

Chevron hired Florida State oceanographer Wilton Sturges to study the spill potential. Sturges said he found "that under worst-case conditions the spilled stuff could be brought ashore much faster than any response team could get there to clean it up. It is a real crapshoot about when it might happen, of course. Most bad things happen during nasty weather, when the difficulties of cleanups are at their worst."

For instance, Hurricane Katrina ripped into Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005, destroying 115 oil platforms, significantly damaging 52 more and setting adrift 19. More than 7-million gallons of petroleum products spilled, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. By comparison, in 1989 the Exxon Valdez spilled 11-million gallons in Alaska's Prince William Sound....

The Coast Guard documented more than 239,000 oil spills across the gulf between 1973 and 2001. In one study of the area where Chevron wanted to drill, the Minerals Management Service predicted that over the next 40 years there could be up to 870 spills of 2,000 gallons or less, which "is expected to result in small pollution events that could temporarily affect the enjoyment or use of some beach segments."

Critics like Enid Sisskin of Gulf Coast Environmental Defense, a Pensacola group that has opposed offshore drilling for more than a decade, say they are not as concerned about oil spills as they are about what she calls "the routine, everyday, day-after-day pollution they dump in the water."

When the rigs first drill into the ocean floor, the crews use fluids called "drilling muds" which include toxic substances including barium, chromium and arsenic. The EPA found that such discharges into the eastern gulf would "introduce significant quantities of contaminants to these relatively pristine waters."

In 2002, the Mobile Press-Register tested grouper and other fish caught around Alabama's offshore rigs. They contained so much mercury that they would not be acceptable for sale to the public under federal guidelines. The source: the drilling muds, which left mercury in the sea-bottom in concentrations as high as that found at Superfund sites.

Then there are all the undersea pipelines and the onshore facilities that would probably have to be built, all of which can leak as well, Leatherman pointed out.

"There's a lot more involved than just drilling a well," he said. "It's just not good for beaches."

And yet, McCain and his Republican pals are pretending that offshore oil drilling is perfectly safe and harmless. It's a flat-out lie, just like their recent lie that the Chinese are drilling off the shores of Cuba.

The last time we saw so many coordinated lies, it was to build the case for war with Iraq. Let's see if the media actually reports the truth this time.