The Gulf Coast Oil Spill: Could It Happen Here?

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Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Stephen Beale, GoLocalProv News Editor

The Gulf Coast oil spill has poured at least 25 million gallons of oil into the ocean, polluted one hundred miles of shore, and dealt a $4.3-billion blow to local fisheries and tourism.

Could it happen here?

Experts say yes—but not on the same scale as the Gulf Coast spill.

The Gulf Coast spill was caused by a blow-out in an a British Petroleum oil well,  according to Malcolm Spaulding, a professor of ocean engineering at URI. That couldn’t happen here because the Ocean State doesn’t have any off-shore wells, he said.

But there is a chance that tankers and barges carrying oil through state waters could have an accident, causing a smaller spill, according to Jim Ball, the Emergency Response Coordinator for the Department of Environmental Management.

Rhode Island has had two major spills in recent memory. In 1989, an oil tanker, the M/V World Prodigy, slammed into Brenton Reef off Newport, sending 290,000 gallons of home heating oil into the water, according to a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.  

Then, in 1996, a barge named the North Cape, ran aground close to Moonstone Beach in South Kingstown, spilling about 828,000 gallons of oil into the waters around the shore, according to NOAA records.

“I hate to say it, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to what happened in the Gulf,” Ball said.

The North Cape disaster was nonetheless devastating for the Ocean State, killing hundreds of birds, countless clams and crabs, and an estimated 12 million lobsters—which nearly wiped out the lobster industry in Rhode Island, according to John Torgan, a spokesman for Save the Bay.

On shore, Rhode Islanders felt the impact as well. “All of South County of Rhode Island is rooted in fishing and the tourism and the coastal economy and so even though the oil disappeared, so did a lot of the mom and pop stores and the fish markets that existed down there,” Torgan said.

As a result of the North Cape incident, Rhode Island is better prepared to deal with a natural disaster like an oil spill, according to Ball. Improvements include buying three skimmers to clean up oil slicks, building a broader network of consultants who can advice emergency responders, and a re-organization of the incident command center.

“We’re still very, very vulnerable,” Torgan said.

He said the Gulf Coast catastrophe showed that policymakers need to rethink the existing rules. “In light of this catastrophe, it’s a good time to re-examine safety and practices and see if there are opportunities to protect our coast, which is our most valuable resource,” he concluded.    

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