Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Opponents weren't swayed by claims that drilling would have no significant environmental impact.
By CRAIG PITTMAN
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 28, 1999
PENSACOLA -- More than 500 people jammed into a hotel ballroom Monday night, all but a few to protest plans by Chevron USA to drill for natural gas in the Gulf off Pensacola. Another 200 milled around in the parking lot, unable to squeeze in.
The hearing, conducted by the U.S. Commerce Department, was part pep rally and part tar-and-feather party.
Every blast at Chevron's plans for offshore drilling drew wild cheers and applause from the crowd. The few who spoke in favor of Chevron were heckled mercilessly and told to get out of town.
Drilling opponents ranged from gray-haired retirees to buttoned-down marketing executives to teenage skateboarders -- unified in their desire to protect the Panhandle's sugar-white beaches and clear Gulf of Mexico waters from any taint of pollution from offshore rigs.
"I've been all over, man, and Pensacola Beach is the best I've ever seen in my life," said Zack Benson, 20, whose foot-high Mohawk made him stand out in the crowd.
There were calls for people to cut up their Chevron credit cards, and suggestions that the government give the company back the millions of dollars it spent to lease the federal land for drilling in the 1980s.
Santa Rosa County Commissioner Bill Campbell warned federal officials conducting the hearing that he had seen Chevron ruin California's beaches when he lived there. "I do not trust Chevron and you shouldn't either," he said.
"We don't want it here!" thundered Pensacola City Council member Rita Jones, who as a child played in the gulf. "I'm just one person, but I represent thousands and they all say no -- N-O!"
Chevron's few supporters tried to argue that offshore drilling would pose a minimal risk to the state's beaches.
"If we believed for a minute that this would seriously impact the environment off the coast of Florida, we would not have filed it," Chevron USA senior counsel David Duplantier said. The crowd responded with gales of derisive laughter.
Chevron has been trying for three years to get permission to drill 21 wells about 30 miles south of Pensacola, in pristine gulf waters where redfish and Spanish and king mackerel spawn. More than 20,000 feet beneath the ocean floor lies enough natural gas for all of Florida's residential and commercial users to burn for nearly 30 years.
Thousands of oil and gas rigs dot the Gulf of Mexico off Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, but so far no company has sunk a producing well off the Florida coast. Every attempt to drill off Florida has hit a brick wall of opposition from every demographic and political group.
Last year, Florida officials rejected Chevron's drilling plans, ruling that offshore rigs are incompatible with the state's efforts to keep its coastline clean.
Allowing Chevron to proceed would result in "two decades of industrial activity in 100 square miles of rich natural resources," state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Struhs warned during the hearing.
In defending their plans, Chevron executives point to a study released last month by the federal Minerals Management Service that concluded offshore drilling would have no significant environmental impact. But DEP experts and environmental activists note that despite its benign conclusion, the study found a host of impacts to the air and water that could last for decades.
Chevron has appealed to the federal government to overrule Florida, based on the argument that national interests outweigh the state's concerns.
That puts the decision into the hands of a single federal official, Commerce Secretary William Daley. His agency scheduled the rare public hearing to take comments from Floridians about Chevron's proposal.
Craig O'Connor, the Commerce official who conducted Monday night's hearing, said Daley will make his decision in early 2000. If the answer is yes then -- barring a lawsuit -- Chevron could begin drilling in 2001.
The timing has thrown the issue into the middle of the presidential campaign, with drilling opponents bringing up a 1992 pledge by then-vice presidential candidate Al Gore to forever protect Florida's shoreline from offshore drilling. Now that Gore is running for president, though, he has avoided getting involved in the debate over allowing Chevron to drill.
Gore's advisers say that, under the law, he cannot get involved in the Chevron decision. They say Daley is like a judge who must base his decision on the facts and not on what his boss might want him to do.
"That's not much of a profile in leadership," Struhs said last week.