To The Editor:
The people of the Pee Dee have long enjoyed the coastal areas of South Caroline. We love the wide beaches, marshlands, and the black water rivers. For generations, families have gone to the coast to savor old memories and create new ones.
And I bet no one goes to the beach hoping to see oil slicks on the water or tar balls in the sand. The coast needs your help to keep it that way. In 2016, coastal residents successfully stopped federal plans to open the Atlantic Ocean to seismic blasting and drilling for oil and gas. But the fight began again in 2017 when Trump Administration officials put the Atlantic back in the proposed plan.
Even worse, the oil and gas industry stepped up efforts to eliminate or waive new safety precautions created in response to the massive Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 in the Gulf. Offshore drilling isn’t just oil derricks out in the ocean. It’s also waste management facilities, processing plants, pipelines, from the rigs to shore and across land, and plants to separate the natural gas from the oil. Each of these steps results in spills and leaks every day. One well in the Gulf has been leaking for 14 years!
Offshore drilling is a risky, dirty business. And it’s a forever decision: once a company drills, that offshore well will never go away, and the potential for disaster is there forever.
Ironically, any oil and gas produced form the Atlantic is likely to be exported.
The U.S. already exports one million barrels per day.
Thanks to onshore drilling (fracking), we are closer than ever to energy independence.
Stop Offshore Drilling in the Atlantic –SODA–is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots group of coastal residents. Their only mission is to stop this plan. Every city and town along the South Carolina coast is strongly opposed to offshore drilling. SODA needs citizens from all across South Carolina to join the flight to protect our coast. You can help by contacting U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott to ask them to join with Governor Henry McMaster, Attorney General Alan Wilson, and U.S. Representative Tom Rice in opposing federal plans to open the Atlantic.
Bo Wallace
6200 Jenny Lane
Wallace, SC 29596