Governor Crist’s Fence-Sitting on Offshore Drilling

Environment America

MIAMI – “With tar balls washing up on famous Texasbeaches and an oil slick almost the size of the City ofTampa floating around in the Gulf of Mexico, how can anyone think that oil drilling is safe enough and clean enough to put within 10 miles of Florida’s beaches?  We need Governor Crist to stop talking about gambling with our coastline before beaches close and tourists leave.

“In the last week, there have been two sizable oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, one on Texas’s South Padre Island beaches visited by tens of thousands of beachgoers and the other, over 60,000 gallons of oil from a pipeline spill offLouisiana that has spread to cover 90 square miles of ocean.

“The pipeline spill, one of the largest since the hurricanes of 2005 and 2008 when millions of gallons of oil were spilled, created a slick 15 miles long and 6 miles wide according to official reports (see source below).  If this 90 square mile spill had originated in the Destin Dome area off Florida’s Panhandle, the area that the U.S. Senate just approved for drilling, the oil would be on our beautiful white sandy beaches today since the area they approved for drilling is only 10 miles offshore. Beaches would be closing and tourists leaving. 

“The spill is almost as large as the land area of the City ofTampa (112 square miles). 

“What more proof does it take for Governor Crist to conclude that oil drilling off our coasts is just never going to be safe enough, clean enough, or far enough offshore?”

Official report referenced is Environmental Protection Agency and US Coast Guard, National Response Center, Incident Report #913179, July 29, 2009 at http://www.nrc.uscg.mil/foia.html