Offshore drilling will bring costly unintended consequences

Economically, offshore drilling should be rejected because of the improbability that it will bring good jobs to South Carolina, and it will put tourism, our leading industry, at risk for a maximum one twenty-eighth (that’s 3.6%) of tourism’s economic return. For Georgetown County, the economic disaster deepens when the 20,000 children of low-paid, oil-related workers triple the size of our school system. If oil advocates disagree with these figures, they have been too polite to say so.

The politicians and oil men know these problems will cripple our communities yet they move forward. Thus, these oppressive economic impacts can be regarded as the intended consequences of drilling. And yet the unintended consequences may touch each of us in more personal ways. For example, in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota (our congressman speaks proudly of his visit), whole communities are wracked by prostitution, human trafficking, and child sex trafficking. Newspaper articles on and investigations of these impacts have become a cottage industry, but start with Windie Lazenko, who calls the problem an “infestation” (http://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/12/dark-side-of-nd-oil-boom-sex-trafficking.html).

Earlier I’ve suggested Georgetown County will be inundated by 10,000 married men with families. Using the prediction of the American Petroleum Institute, that leaves 14,000 (the 11,000 who work on the rigs don’t count since they are unlikely to visit Georgetown County) lonely, mostly young men with nothing to do for excitement except visit the Georgetown County Museum and attend church services (some will not be Bible Belters). Any chance they will be involved in vandalism, fights, gambling, drugs or other unwelcome activities? Since these gentlemen only increase our population by 23%, I’m sure our county police force will be able to cope.

Along the Gulf Coast, the part known as “Cancer Alley” or the “Chemical Corridor,” concerns take on a more life-threatening character. Oil yields nothing to the Love Canal when it comes to acidification of water supplies, erosion of soil, pollution of groundwater, asthma-inducing air quality, and particulates that eventually find a home in residents’ tracheas. Despite relentless advertising by BP (which is eligible to bid on Atlantic drilling leases), many in Mississippi and Louisiana say little has improved in the five years since the massive 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.

I’ve always said that our air quality in Georgetown County is way too high. One of the unintended consequences of drilling in the Atlantic and then processing on shore is a solution for that problem. Not to worry. It’s mostly old people and children who can’t handle bad air. You’ll be okay. You’ve got Obamacare, right?

Have you considered how the oil will be handled once it is brought ashore? Either a pipeline or road system must be constructed to ship it to refineries. If it’s a pipeline, familiarize yourself with the term “eminent domain,” which is also known to carry unintended consequences. Any thoughts on who puts up the money if it turns out not to be a pipeline but a road system (this is where Horry County takes a hit)? That comes under the heading of unintended consequence, which is a way of saying “you, the taxpayer, get to dig deep.”

If any of this sounds tongue-in-cheeky, it is no laughing matter. It is simply a warning for you not to be blindsided by this particular set of unintended consequences. There are many others.

This story was originally published November 16, 2015 at 9:52 AM with the headline "Offshore drilling will bring costly unintended consequences."