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What Will He Inherit? My younger brother plays in Pensacola Beach surf May 26, 2010. As he grows up, his memories of the Gulf will be decidedly different than mine. |
CommentsWhere's the Second Sandbar?
By Mayumi ElegadoPublished: June 22, 2010
Publisher's Box
I was lucky to attend high school on the Florida Panhandle. Its crystalline beaches, just minutes away, were a comforting salve for the trials and tribulations of teenage life. The coastline is a classic beachgoer’s dream. Sugary white sand — broken-down remnants of mountain quartz from upriver — squeaks beneath your feet for miles upon endless miles. With a bearable temperature, its buoyant water is protected from the scary parts of the ocean by two sandbars, and so invites all to swim. The wildlife is abundant and fascinating — the area is popular with dolphins — yet you never went past the second sandbar unless you had an urge to commune with sharks. That long ridge of sand, visible from the shore, is much like the boundaries we establish in our lives, within which we can productively and safely thrive.
Well before April 20, the notorious beginning of the “worst environmental disaster” in U.S. history, I bought a plane ticket to Florida. I had no inkling of how fateful this purchase was. Arriving in late May, I spent hours on Pensacola Beach, swimming, playing, and laughing — re-living a delight in this shoreline, which I swear is now imprinted on my DNA. Countless manta rays glided by in huge schools, and pods of dolphins poked their fins above the water’s surface by the second sandbar. Donning a diving mask, I spotted a baby sea turtle that I swam behind. A short while later, a BIG turtle popped its stumpy head out of an incoming wave. I apparently passed the inspection, and it swam on.
Even then the ominous threat of the disastrous oil plumes loomed. We monitored the news with horror and heartbreak. At that time, the spill was still comfortably 75 miles offshore, and Pollyanna estimates of the leakage rate continued. Hope remained that it would not reach Pensacola Beach. As we now know, these prayers were not answered.
A few days after I returned home, an old friend wrote to say that oil had reached her local beach, about 20 miles west of Pensacola, and residents could smell the odor of oil in the air. Tar balls now spot the beaches of Pensacola, discouraging beachgoers from staying.
A messy, and often antagonistic, partnership between BP and the federal government continues with the daunting challenge of trying to plug a hole approximately 5,000 feet below the Gulf surface. The oil is gushing from this underwater abyss at a rate estimated to be anywhere from 840,000 to 2.5 million gallons a day.
The lion’s share of attention right now is focused on stopping the spill, as it should be. But it’s also crucial to learn from this mistake, and to that end Attorney General Eric Holder announced June 1 that he had begun a criminal investigation. He didn’t specify the target of the investigation because, well, authorities are still not clear on who should ultimately be held liable. Apparently it’s been difficult to figure out who was actually responsible on the Deepwater Horizon rig. A fragmented conglomeration of businesses, doing piecemeal aspects of the job, were often at odds with each other, right up to the explosion that left 11 dead.
On top of that, the federal agency in charge of oversight, the Minerals Management Service, played a murky (if not downright nefarious) role. It was at the same time an advocate, beneficiary, and regulator for the oil drilling industry. The agency’s coffers are fattened by collection of royalties from the oil industry. And when BP officials first set their sights on the drill site, regulators exempted the drilling project from a rigorous type of environmental review required by federal law.
According to a June 5 New York Times article, “Deepwater oil production in the gulf, which started in 1979 but expanded much faster in the mid-1990s with new technology and federal incentives, is governed as much by exceptions to rules as by the rules themselves.”
Guess they like swimming past that second sandbar.
As always,
Mayumi Elegado
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