Coming soon to a beach near you

On a business trip to "Little Washington" Thursday, I squeezed in a five-minute visit with former colleague Ray McKeithan at his office at the Washington Daily News. Ray and I had worked together about 20 years ago when he was ad director at The Wilson Daily Times and I was editor. We've reconnected occasionally in the time since he left for greener pastures, and I was sorry I had only a few minutes to catch up. I'll have to drop in on him again sometime.

Topics at my business meeting ranged far and wide, but one topic of concern drew gasps — the likelihood that oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico could wind up on North Carolina beaches. This has been speculated in some news reports and scientific modeling, but to hear coastal residents discussing this as an issue we'll have to prepare for and face brought the topic close to home. One apparently knowledgeable participant in my meeting said oil was approaching the Florida Keys, and once it got that far, it would be only a matter of days before it flowed into the Gulf Stream and hurdled toward the North Carolina coast. Oil sheens and tar balls could be lapping up onto North Carolina's precious beaches before the summer's over, but that's not all. The oil could easily find its way into the Intracoastal Waterway. A hurricane or a smaller storm could push the oil even farther inland, up estuaries and tidal streams.

If the news from the Gulf and the apparent helplessness of the best petroleum engineers BP can hire were not enough to sour America on offshore drilling, the desecration of beaches in 10 or more states could alter the entire national attitude toward offshore drilling and petroleum in general. This incident — drilling for oil in mile-deep water while cutting corners on safety precautions with the complicity of lax or incompetent federal regulators — could become the Three Mile Island or the Love Canal of the oil industry. An overheated reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant soured the country on nuclear power, even though the environmental damage was minimal. A chemical company's uncaring poisoning of residents at Love Canal shocked America and led to stricter controls on chemical companies and the dumping of poisons.

Americans are angry over the apparent inability of BP and the government to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and are worried about the long-term environmental damage of this spill. The longer the oil continues to billow and the more oil that washes ashore or kills marine wildlife, the more willing Americans will be to clamp down on the powerful oil industry. They might even be willing to curtail their own use of oil by finding alternative energy supplies. Until they take that final step, oil sucked from underwater wells or delivered by huge tankers will remain a hazard to plants, seafood, animals and people.

Oil slick stains political landscape

That gigantic oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is about to crash into more than those pristine tourist beaches and essential estuaries. It's also headed straight toward political headwaters.

It's been a generation since an oil spill off the California coast turned public opinion against offshore drilling, and it's been 21 years since the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska. During all that time, America's appetite for oil has increased. Offshore drilling has quietly increased, spreading into deeper waters in the Gulf as the oil industry assured the public that new safety devices eliminated concerns about major oil spills. President Obama and other politicians made the once-unthinkable shift toward allowing more offshore drilling in previously restricted areas along the Atlantic Coast from Virginia to Florida. And the public, shell-shocked by $4 a gallon gasoline, didn't seem to mind.

The April 20 explosion and subsequent collapse of a deep-water drilling platform remains an anomaly — just one of scores of offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico dutifully pumping crude oil ashore to be turned into gasoline and other petroleum products. This one spill could undo the good work and goodwill of years of safe operation of other drilling platforms. The potential environmental damage is vast. Not only will white-sand beaches that lure tourists be blackened by crude oil, but the shrimp and oyster beds, water fowl nesting areas and fisheries could be devastated by a thick coating of sticky crude. Oil industry, Coast Guard, Navy and EPA officials are all trying to minimize the damage to the shoreline of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, but the magnitude of this spill makes effective containment nearly impossible.

As bad as the environmental damage might be, America's appetite for oil is unlikely to be diminished, and offshore wells are among the few options left to reduce the importation of foreign oil. The mess in the Gulf should be a warning that more effective safeguards are needed — a blowout valve should have shut off the oil at the wellhead, but it failed. It should not be seen as a need for an absolute prohibition against offshore drilling. Proposals for drilling off North Carolina's coast target natural gas, not oil. Any spill at a natural gas well would result in the release of gas into the atmosphere, not an oil slick.

The risk of environmental damage is the price we pay for our insatiable appetite for oil, particularly in internal combustion engines. Until we control that appetite, we have to accept that risk and be prepared to safeguard against its consequences.