Lies and more lies. That is what comes out of the mouths of conservatives in this country. To support their "drill, baby drill" policy for the outer continental shelf, they repeatedly claimed that not a drop of oil was spilled in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That is a lot of crap. A report prepared for the party-goers at the Minerals Management Service (MMS) by a Norwegian firm shows that 457 pipelines were damaged and 113 platforms were destroyed in the storms. Six spills of 1000 barrels or greater were reported to the Coast Guard. The largest was 3,625 barrels. There were 595 onshore spills totalling 9 million gallons, or comparable to the Exxon Valdez disaster in which 10 million gallons were released. The Murphy Oil spill in Mereaux, La. covered one square mile, contaminated 1700 homes, and closed the local high school. The Houston Chronicle ranked the contamination caused by the two hurricanes "among the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history".An AP study of incident reports before and after the latest hurricane of the season, Ike, found at least 500,000 gallons of oil and other chemicals were spilled along the Gulf coast. 52 platforms were destroyed by the storm and 32 severely damaged according to the MMS. Never let it be said that the oil industry and its paid pols let reality stand in the way of their cynical plans to drill our way to energy independence.
[image credit: Fog City Journal]