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| Outer Banks beach |
If one lives in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia or the Outer Banks of North Carolina, after the military and the U.S. government spending, the number one driver of the economy is tourism, especially tourism focused on the regions' beaches and waterways. As I have noted before on this blog, years ago I was in-house counsel for a Fortune 50 company's oil and gas subsidiary, so I do know a thing or two about oil and gas explorations and offshore drilling (I even negotiated concession agreements with foreign governments). While no oil company wants a drilling disaster, as the BP nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico made clear, accidents do happen and the economic and environmental consequences are dire. Here are highlights from
Think Progress on opposition to Atlantic offshore drilling:
For coastal companies that depend on a healthy stream of tourists to
keep business healthy, the prospect of drilling in the Atlantic Ocean
means one thing: spills that will sully beaches and drive visitors away.
More than 300 Atlantic coast businesses sent a letter
to President Obama Thursday, urging him to take back his
administration’s proposal to allow drilling in the Atlantic Ocean. In
January, the Obama administration announced a proposal to sell oil and gas leases in offshore sites from Virginia to Georgia.
In the letter, the businesses outline the economic risk posed by
offshore drilling, saying that monetary losses due to lost tourism
revenue could be “devastating.” They also note that the Energy
Information Administration estimates that the Atlantic Ocean holds only about 209 days’ worth of oil and 13 months’ worth of natural gas.
“Offshore drilling is incompatible with our tourism and fishing
industries. When you drill, you spill, and day to day drilling
operations result in chronic pollution and the industrialization of the
coast for oil facilities,” the letter reads. “Look no further than the
devastation the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe brought to the Gulf of
Mexico’s fishing, tourism and wildlife to recognize the impact drilling
would have here on the Atlantic Coast.”
Jeff Downey, owner of the Savannah, Georgia restaurant Circa 1875 and
one of the signatories of the letter, said on a press call Thursday that
about 85 percent of his business during the summer comes from tourists.
“If they allow offshore drilling, it will ruin our coasts first of
all, and people will just stop coming,” he said. Savannah is in a
hurricane zone, he said, and though hurricanes there have been rare over the last century, he worries a major storm could damage a drilling rig and cause a spill.
Cola Vaughan, owner of Cola Vaughan Realty on North Carolina’s Outer
Banks, was another one of the business owners who signed on to the
letter. He said businesses in the Outer Banks depend heavily on pristine
beaches to attract visitors, and that even a “perceived threat” of
spills would cause potential vacationers to think twice about choosing
the Outer Banks.
It makes sense for businesses to be worried about a major spill. The Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 people and sent millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, took a toll on Gulf businesses. An estimated $22.7 billion in Gulf tourism money was lost from 2010 through 2013 because of the spill.
The 300 businesses hope adding their names to the opposition will
help convince the administration to give up plans for Atlantic drilling.
“Our coasts are worth too much to risk,” they write in the letter.
“Rather than exposing our beaches, families and businesses to the
inherent risks of drilling, we need to move this country in the
direction of renewable energy.”
In the interest of full disclosure, the husband and I live on a tidal creek, and a major oil spill offshore from Hampton Roads could foul the creek behind our home.
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| Our backyard and Robinson Creek last fall |
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