TV REVIEW : KGTV Shotgun Approach to Oil Misses the Mark

“Crude Legacy,” a KGTV (Channel 10)-produced special airing at 8 tonight, lacks any real focus or theme, and is instead a hodgepodge attempt at attacking one of the major issues facing Californians.

The hourlong special, which examines the dangers and compromises caused by America’s dependence on oil, touches on a wide variety of topics, each worthy of hours of inspection.

PBS television’s “Frontline” recently devoted an hour to examining the cause of the Exxon Valdez disaster, including the efforts before and after to avoid a major oil spill. The Channel 10 special also focuses on the aftermath, but only scratches the surface of the controversy surrounding Exxon’s attempts to clean up the spill and the new procedures governing tankers in the area.

Similar lightweight examinations of other areas, all of which have been covered in depth at one time or another by other media, make the special notably unexciting. There is no compelling factor to make the viewer want to watch it for more than a few minutes.

Certainly, there are several elements that could have been emotionally charged, if producer Wayne Brown had decided to focus more on them. There are real questions about the ability to clean up a spill off California, a system that “rises to the occasion by crisis, not conviction,” as reporter Adrienne Alpert points out.

But, other than Stephen Clark pouring a quart of oil on a rug to demonstrate what it would mean to pick up 20% of the oil, there is little real examination of the oil industry’s role in preparing for another disaster, such as the recent spill off Huntington Beach caused by a tanker running over its own anchor.

From the political perspective, Alpert chronicles the rhetoric on both sides of the fence--the oil industry’s claim that it is ready and willing to support cleanup programs and the environmentalists’ call for a $150-million cleanup fund. The two big issues in Sacramento are money and liability, she says. If those two factors are all that’s on the minds of legislators, that would be worth a special of its own.

“Crude Legacy,” primarily composed of reports already seen during Channel 10’s newscasts last month, never seriously challenges the assertions of the oil industry, its claims that an accident such as the Exxon Valdez or Huntington Beach won’t happen again. The other perspective, the view of environmentalists who want to see more controls, is always scrupulously documented, but there is clearly more to the story.

It would be easy to spend an hour really examining what the oil industry, and state and national bureaucracies, have done to protect the environment. “Crude Legacy” doesn’t come close, even though it touches on some interesting areas.

For example, it discusses the amount of money spent to save animals endangered by spills. It is a battle between the emotions involved in saving the lives of otters and birds, and the harsh reality of the millions it costs to save a relatively few animals. It’s a serious, emotional issue. But, again, “Crude Legacy” only scratches the surface, never seriously examining the oil industry’s preparations to handle the results of its accidents, or the extent of its liability.

With such emotional questions surrounding the issue, it seems superfluous to spend 10 minutes of “Crude Legacy” examing the development of alternatives to oil. An hour could easily be spent on that topic, too. Instead, the special mentions the expansion of the San Diego Trolley, without really questioning whether it will be effective, and research on electric cars, without touching on the economic and political factors driving the transportation industry.

Ultimately, the special concludes that people need to cut down on their gas consumption, perhaps by driving more fuel-efficient cars, to solve the oil problem.

“Quite literally, we all hold the key to our crude legacy,” Clark says, tossing his car keys in the air.

That won’t ring true for people who once enjoyed the Alaskan coastline, or for anybody who lived through the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969. And it shouldn’t ring true for San Diegans. It is a superficial answer to a complex and dangerous issue.