Be careful with facts
Greg Colburn of Hanover says Todd Platts was "lying" when he said that "no oil was spilled" by oil rigs during Hurricane Katrina since "some "17,653 barrels of oil from platforms, rigs and pipelines" were spilled from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Platts was wrong, but I'm sorry to say that Mr. Colburn's overall conclusion is faulty. Did Platts know he was wrong? He was quite possibly repeating similar statements by others such as Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal who said there were "no major spills."
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According to the National Research Council, oil seeps naturally into the northern Gulf of Mexico "an average rate of 70,000 tonnes per year," and varies plus or minus 43%. That's an average of 511,000 barrels. So the spills equaled just 3.5% or the average annual seepage from the ocean floor, not counting other sizable sources of oil entering the Gulf. Widely dispersed, relatively small amounts like this are indistinguishable from natural sources. That's why we never heard any stories about clean ups. The spills during Katrina and Rita simply were not significant.
Spillage from oil drilling and transportation has declined dramatically in the last two decades. Moreover, studies have shown that offshore drilling actually reduces natural seepage. In fact an environmental group in California is calling for drilling because it reduces seepage by more than it spills.
So yes, Todd Platts was technically wrong, but Mr. Colburn has not shown him to be a liar. Does that make Colburn a liar? Of course not. He probably just let his partisanship cloud his judgment. In this election season it seems to me that everyone needs to calm down. Let's be careful with the facts, name calling, and especially the accusations. That includes politicians who preemptively accuse others of upcoming racial attacks.
Jim Ogden
Dover Township
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