Island Residents Are Fighting to Keep Oil Drilling Off the Florida Keys

Jack Wedge, who for years made his living as a shrimper in the pristine waters off Florida Keys, fears that this tropical paradise could be lost.

The culprit, he and other island residents say, is a federal plan to permit offshore oil drilling on the outer continental shelf in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the Florida Straits in the Atlantic Ocean.

The two bodies of water lap against the 128-mile-long string of Keys, home to half the country’s mangroves, 500,000 acres of sea grass, 600 fish species and the only living reef in the continental United States.

Oil Blowouts Feared

“Quality of life is not a dollar bill,” said Wedge. “And that is what they want to take away from us.”

Despite assurances of safety from the oil industry and federal regulators, opponents of the plan predict that drilling will mean oil well blowouts.

They envision tar coating beaches and killing the coral reef. They fear an increase in boat and tanker traffic and an explosion in Monroe County’s population, now 66,000. Bridges that link the Keys to the mainland would deteriorate under the weight of trucks bringing supplies to the oil rigs, they say.

“It’s just a death wish,” said John Curtis, a novelist who has lived in the Keys for much of the last two decades. “I don’t think anyone can see a benefit.”

Environmental Worries

Standing on a rocky beach on Big Coppitt Key, Wedge pulled apart a clump of turtle grass and released hundreds of newly hatched shrimp. “This is all part of our estuary,” he said. “This is where the food and the juveniles come from. You start pouring oil over it and it’s gone.”

The U.S. Department of Interior’s five-year plan to lease 66 million acres of oil exploration tracts in the offshore federal waters of Florida and about 700 million acres nationally went into effect July 2.

The first lease sales in Florida will be in 1988 and 1991 and will include all waters off the state’s west coast, with the exceptions of a 30-mile buffer zone from Cape San Blas south to Naples, the beds of sea grass off Dixie County and the Florida Middle Grounds, a rich fishing region.

Outcry Over Sanctuaries

But it is the proposed sale in 1992 of tracts of the Florida Straits and the Everglades, with protective zones in marine sanctuaries around Key Largo, that has sparked the greatest outcry among the fishermen, divers, artists, writers and retirees who live here.

The plan is also opposed by Gov. Bob Martinez and the entire Florida congressional delegation. U.S. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) has invited Interior Department Secretary Donald P.Hodel “to see firsthand the irreplaceable nature of those islands and wetlands” before allowing the leases to go through.

The oil industry maintains, however, that its safety record is good, spills are quickly cleaned up, and the drilling is necessary to lessen the United States’ dependence on foreign oil, which is higher now than at the time of the 1973-74 oil embargo, according to the Florida Petroleum Council, a trade association.

Safety Record Stressed

“There’s a lot of misinformation” on the part of the public, said Eileen P. Angelico, an Interior Department spokeswoman.

The department says about 239,400 gallons of oil per year have been spilled from all U.S. offshore exploration, production and transportation since 1970, the year after a massive well blowout on the West Coast off Santa Barbara.

“We believe the more than 30-year record of the offshore industry provides overwhelming evidence that we can find and develop offshore petroleum resources in an entirely safe and environmentally responsible fashion--and without harm to the tourism or fishing industries of this state,” said Sally Patrenos, associate director of the Florida Petroleum Council.

Besides, she said, if exploration turns up no evidence of oil, no platforms will be installed. If commercial discoveries are made, production facilities must be approved by local, state and federal governments before installation, she added.

Fishing, Tourism Threatened

“The sheer cost of such facilities dictates that a minimal number would be installed,” Patrenos said. “Delaying or blocking exploration now will reduce U.S. energy production for many years, increase dependence on foreign oil and undermine our nation’s security and economic well-being.”

But many Keys residents believe drilling will harm the sport fishing, diving and tourism industries, which brought in more than $225 million in 1986. Commercial fishing generated millions of dollars more.

“We have had no one call or write to ask to see oil rigs in the Gulf or (Florida) Bay and I don’t imagine that will happen,” noted Phil Berkowitz, president of the Key West Hotel & Motel Assn.

Key West Mayor Tom Sawyer added, “If headlines ran, ‘Oil Ruins Keys,’ and someone was planning a vacation here, they would tend to cancel and go elsewhere.”

Long-Term Effects Deadly

Residents wonder why the federal government has proposed oil leasing here after working years to identify and place dozens of marine, plant and reptile species on the endangered, threatened and “species of special concern” lists. The Keys also are an “area of critical state concern,” which means construction is strictly controlled to protect the environment.

“It seems the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand has been doing,” said Sandy Higgs, who moved here 21 years ago and is administrative director of the Monroe County Tourist Development Council.

While some acknowledge that the oil business could boost the Keys’ economy in the short-term, they insist that the long-term effects would be deadly.

“They want to replace a thriving industry (fishing) with a finite industry, and that’s poor foresight,” said Wedge. “Once they get all they want and cap off their wells, we’ll be like Houston.”