Some Florida politicians seem to believe that oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is safe as long as it is out of sight. Those myopic officials need to take a trip, as Times staff writer Craig Pittman did, to the beaches in Texas, where offshore drilling has long been tolerated. Tar-like globs of crude oil roll in with the tide, and the sand is often littered with empty chemical drums, buckets, sheets of plastic, lumber and other detritus from offshore rigs. Beach communities are forced to spend millions of dollars cleaning up the mess so tourists won't flee in disgust, Pittman reported in Sunday's Times (see Is this in Florida's future?).

While the oil industry brags that there hasn't been a major oil spill in the gulf for 21 years, that ignores the cumulative effect of many small spills. Oil can leak from platforms, tankers and pipelines that link drilling sites to shore. The industry has reported spills totaling 5,000 barrels of oil since 1985.

When there is a major accident, such as the Ixtoc I spill off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula in 1979, the devastation is widespread and long-lived. A few months after that spill, Texas' coastline was covered in oil, and tourism fell by 60 percent. It didn't end there. For the next eight years, storms would stir up offshore "tar reefs" left by the spill, polluting beaches once again. Such visual pollution is in addition to the release of tons of sometimes toxic materials used in the drilling process, which collect on the gulf bottom.

Despite the potential for similar damage to Florida's spectacular beaches and productive estuaries, two of Florida's most powerful politicians were quick to compromise on drilling in an area of the eastern gulf known as 181.

For years, U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Largo, had stopped the Interior Department from selling leases off of the Florida coast. But he bought into a compromise that reduced the size of 181, meaning the closest drilling would be moved from 30 miles to 100 miles off the Florida coast. "That moves (drilling) offshore," Young said in June. "I talked to Jeb Bush about it, and he said that would make it less objectionable." Sure enough. A month later, Gov. Bush announced he had reached an agreement with his brother, President George W. Bush, and would withdraw his objections to drilling in 181.

Will the extra 70 miles of ocean protect Florida beaches from the inevitable pollution that offshore drilling brings? The experiences of Texas beach communities suggest it won't. The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service forecasts that "small pollution events" from drilling in 181 will temporarily close some beaches, "but have little effect on the number of beach users or tourism." In Florida, it is no small matter when crude oil makes an appearance on the state's beaches.

It's too bad congressman Young and Gov. Bush didn't have a beach weekend in Texas before they agreed to drill even 100 miles off Florida's coast.

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