The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I was a rabid supporter of Bahamas Petroleum Company’s (BPC) bid to drill for oil in The Bahamas until I discovered that the Bahamian government would only be compensated a paltry $5 billion over a ten year period, which is equivalent to 225 million per year.

That figure is a drop in the water and an insult to the Bahamian people. Over an 87-day period in 2010, 3.19 million barrels or 134 million gallons of crude oil was spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, fouling the coasts of Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas in the process.

The spill was precipitated by a massive explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf Coast, which killed 11 crew members and injured 17 others.

Owners and operators of the oil rig, British Petroleum, Anadarko, TransOcean and Halliburton collectively paid a settlement of $20.8 billion to the United States federal government in 2016 – the largest settlement in that nation’s history.

To get an idea of how devastating the British Petroleum oil spill was for the marine life in the Gulf of Mexico, 8.3 billion oysters perished and the reproductive cycles of commercial and recreational fish were disrupted by the chemicals emanating from the oil.

Moreover, according to marine biologists, the oil spill was responsible for the demise of 105,400 sea birds, 167,600 turtles and a staggering 51 percent decrease in dolphins in Barataria Bay in Louisiana.

According to National Geographic, only 20 percent of dolphin pregnancies are successful, compared to 83 percent in unoiled regions.

The figures mentioned above are only estimations. National Geographic, I believe, was much closer to the truth when it stated that untold millions of marine mammals, sea turtles, birds and fish were lost. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill also devastated the fishing industry in Louisiana.

I am not an environmentalist. I am pro-oil. But suppose BPC has an oil spill like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, what would happen to the fishing and tourism industries?

Moreover, do we, as a third world state, have the resources, expertise and manpower to clean up a spill the size of the one in the Gulf of Mexico?

Another thing, does Simon Potter and the other executives of BPC have billions to compensate the Bahamian government and the thousands of Bahamian fishermen and tourism industry workers, who would be impacted by an oil spill?

What will happen to the conch and Grouper and Snapper fish Bahamians live to consume?

Another thing, suppose there is an oil spill the size and scale of the one in the Gulf, what will happen to our tourism industry – an industry that currently employs directly and indirectly tens of thousands of Bahamians?

The $5 billion Potter and his BPC surrogates keep bringing up cannot offset the loss of the multi-billion dollar tourism industry that has sustained our country since the 1940s.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport,

Grand Bahama,

December 13, 2020.