Oil Spill – What’s to Fear?

It is only stating the obvious, when I say that a shutdown will be hard on everyone connected with commercial fishing. Few people can survive for long without a regular income, and most fishermen have neither reserves to fall back on, nor alternate work options. Loss of income is the most visible effect of a shutdown, but as a life-long member of the Key West fishing industry, and one who depends entirely on fishing for my income, let me point out some related concerns about the oil spill.

1) The ridiculous claims of the anti-oil crowd: Last week, President Obama got in trouble with some of his supporters by stating an obvious truth; nature is very resilient, and will bounce back from this disaster the same way it always does. It doesn’t matter that he spoke common sense, or that history backs up his statements completely. It only matters that he was guilty of environmental heresy. He contradicted the mantra of environmental extremists which maintains; nature is always fragile!

This past Sunday, the Miami Herald ran a front page story with the subheading, “The spill that blanketed Texas beaches 31 years ago showed that nature has a remarkable capacity to undo the damage that humans and their oil rigs dish out.” Wes Tunnell, a marine biologist, was quoted as saying, “You look around, and it’s like the spill never happened. There’s a lot of perplexity in it for many of us.”

After two months of hearing nothing but apocalyptic predictions, it’s refreshing to observe some calmer language. It seems that no disaster is ever so bad on its own, that there aren’t special interests around benefiting from making it sound 10 times worse. So yes, there is a very real fear among fishermen that reaction to the spill will be based on the exaggerated claims, and not on the reality of the situation.

2) Government overreaction: With all the sensationalized headlines, and the criticism government is already receiving, it would be amazing if they don’t overreact. Bureaucrats do not like criticism, and they are usually able to deflect the worst of it by manipulating information and circumstances to their advantage. This usually means being more tuned in to the political world, than the real world. They are already being blamed for inaction when the spill first occurred, and they are not likely to let it happen again. So yes again, I fear that at the first sign of a Deepwater Horizon tarball, or reports of a random oil sheen within a hundred miles of Key West, commercial fishing will be shut down indefinitely.

3) Government non-action: Perhaps my biggest concern, is not so much being shut down, but getting re-opened again. If it is established that any amount of oil will warrant a shut down, who will make the decision to let us fish again, and when? How many bureaucrats will have to sign off on it?
How many studies will have to be completed? How many tarballs are acceptable? Fishery managers are notorious for acting swiftly with restrictive fishery regulation, but equally famous for being slow to lift the restrictions. Am I afraid that will happen with an oil spill closure? Absolutely!

4) Politics will rule: In today’s world everything is politics. One of the President’s first actions on the oil spill, was to suspend all drilling. With the huge number of producing wells, the long safety record of such operations, and the nation’s critical need for energy, the action makes little sense in the real world. Yet, in the world of politics, even the most remote possibility of having contiguous disasters, becomes unthinkable. Now that we have drilling stopped indefinitely, refer to number 3, and ask yourself what you think it’s going to take to get it started again….. How about $6 a gallon gasoline?

The president’s chief advisor Rahm Emanuel famously stated, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” No doubt climate change proponents are even now planning how they can use the disaster to push through legislative horrors like Cap and Trade, and carbon dioxide emission controls. How long will it be before fishery managers use the oil spill to push through emergency restrictions on different fisheries? When it comes to the political world, and especially the politically correct world, the average working person is simply incapable of imagining all the possibilities for mischief. So look out!

Perhaps it’s only that I’m weary of hearing about the impending disaster, but it seems that there are a lot of people cheering on the oil spill. Every time there is a hurricane looming, we have to go through the same tiring scenario. Those who profit from disasters come out of the woodwork, and suddenly everyone is concerned about our welfare and safety. The media goes into a frenzy, the government again becomes our guardian angel, attorneys materialize from around the country to help us get a fair shake, environmental groups drop everything to come to the rescue, and politicians rise to new levels of concern.

We assume that most of them are well meaning, but sometimes we just wish everyone would go away and leave us alone. We are not helpless little children that will lie down and cry if the government does not take care of us. We will not become destitute if lawyers do not protect our rights. We will not try to pawn off oil drenched fish on an unsuspecting public if the watchdog media does not keep a close eye on us. And amazingly enough, we actually understand what the oil spill can mean to our livelihoods and the marine ecosystem – even without our environmental friends educating us.

No one in commercial fishing is going to object to a shutdown if the oil comes our way, but they better show us something more than 6 tarballs on Duck Key, or a passing sheen from someone’s outboard motor. Judging by the number of people who turn out for grounded whales and wounded turtles, I’m sure the Keys will have a huge clean up crew going in short order. In the mean time we will just keep working, and hope that the oil does not come. But whatever happens, we can deal with it, and everyone should rest assured that ‘this too shall pass’.

Be Sociable, Share!

Leave a Reply

Security Code: