Drilling risks hit home

On Wednesday in Columbia, a state Senate panel approved legislation ordering the Department of Health and Environmental Control to "expedite" applications for oil and natural gas drilling off South Carolina's coast. On Wednesday in the Gulf of Mexico, a massive oil rig explosion left 11 workers missing and presumed dead, and released an undetermined amount of oil about 50 miles off Louisiana's coast. Keep the latter event in event in mind while considering the wisdom of the first.

Clearly, despite remarkable advances in the safety of offshore drilling over the last several decades, it remains a risky business -- both for people and the environment. Yet proponents of drilling off the S.C. coast argue that we must rush toward drilling due to looming competition from other Atlantic seaboard states.

And while Sen. Paul Campbell, R-Goose Creek, said the bill that he and his subcommittee backed Wednesday remains a "long shot" for passage this year, the push for offshore drilling has gained serious momentum in recent years.

That trend extends beyond South Carolina. President Obama, as a White House candidate in 2008, expressed opposition to lifting the long moratorium on new offshore drilling of the U.S. coast. Yet he lifted that ban last month for most of the Atlantic Coast (including South Carolina) and some areas off Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico.

And while states should have some serious political say on this issue, and should reap serious financial rewards if drilling occurs, their control of ocean waters extends only three miles off their coasts, with shared control going another three miles. Washington is in charge of the waters where drilling for oil and/or natural gas off our coast would occur -- 50 miles and more offshore.

As for the prospects of profits from drilling off our state's coast, as our Thursday story reported: "Experts generally agree that not a whole lot of oil lies off South Carolina. They disagree over how much natural gas might be out there, and whether it can be found in the type of field that can be commercially drilled."

You don't have to be an expert, however, to know that South Carolina's economic health relies heavily on tourism dollars -- and that our relatively pristine coast is a major drawing card.

Nor do you need meteorological credentials to know that we live in a hurricane zone, which significantly raises the hazards of drilling operations.

Our national need to become less dependent on foreign oil obviously demands that we make reasonable attempts to boost domestic energy production -- along with efforts to boost conservation and develop alternative energy sources.

But that doesn't mean it would be reasonable to jeopardize South Carolina's clean beaches and coastal marshes for, at best, a highly questionable reward in offshore oil and natural gas.