This ain’t good.
Winds that had been blowing more or less out of the north are expected to come southerly, pushing an oil spill said to be twice the size of Maryland toward Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and the Florida panhandle.
Even if you’re sitting back in your chair and looking up at the sky, the vastness of the damage this spill portends is hard to imagine.
South Louisiana, for example, consists of millions of wetland acres that are home — and nursery — to fish, shrimp, oysters, birds and other wildlife.
Proponents of offshore drilling can point to the significant economic benefits that accrue from drilling.
But they do not accrue in a vacuum. In 2008, the ex-vessel value of Louisiana’s seafood harvest was $275 million, NMFS statistics tell us. Take that out to retail sales and you’re well north of a $1 billion. To say nothing of the value of recreational fishing.
In any event, the value of marine ecosystems cannot be calculated in terms of dollars and cents, and wetlands mired in tar and oil cannot be replaced.
President Obama, who sought his office running against offshore drilling, recently changed his tune.
But if a hearing in New Jersey this week on seismic testing, which would precede offshore drilling there, is any indication, he could be changing his tune again. According to NewJerseyNewsroom.com “almost no one” spoke in support of the program.
A spill would be one thing if you could close the spigot and clean it up. Now we find out that it may be weeks, if not months, before they can shut off the flow of oil, and that there may be more leaks than originally thought.
Last year, the operators of an oil rig off Australia spent 10 weeks plugging a leak that occurred following an explosion.
I get it.
Thank you for your time.
Jerry Fraser
Editor & Publisher, National Fisherman
www.nationalfisherman.com
