Perhaps the "gusher in the Gulf was not for naught.

• Author: Rader, Douglas N.
• Position: Gulf of Mexico oil spill - Ecology

PUNDITS HAVE been speculating that the unprecedented British Petroleum oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico will become a "game changer," in the same way that the now-infamous 1969 fire on the Cuyaboga River spurred a generation of environmentalism, stimulated the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, and other pillars of modern environmental law, and led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency under Pres. Richard Nixon--a man not known as terribly green.

It remains to be seen whether the events in the Gulf will lead to breakthrough momentum to rebuild the wetlands of coastal Louisiana, protect disadvantaged communities against rising seas and intensifying storms, inject momentum into still-struggling climate legislation, or fuel the fires for a green energy portfolio for the U.S.'s future.

Nonetheless, there are essential lessons to be drawn from the "Gusher in the Gulf," so that the prodigious ecological damage and the economic, social, and health injuries to coastal residents from four states can be assessed fairly and offset, and measures taken to reduce the risk of repetition while the nation seeks a more secure energy future.

As public attention wanders back to Lady Gaga and Leo DiCaprio, it is essential to "out" the red herrings that have been perpetrated in the name of continuing dependence on fossil fuels. Perhaps the most insidious patent medicine being sold these days is the suggestion that the BP oil disaster happened only because of the confluence of extremely unlikely--nearly impossible--factors, and that there is next to no chance it will happen again.

While the falseness of this it-cannot-happen-here mantra seems obvious, there is important texture that bears examination. In 2009-10, I co-chaired North Carolina's Legislative Subcommittee on Offshore Energy Exploration, finalizing our report April 13, one week before the Deepwater Horizon shattered the confident fairy tale of U.S. Outer Continental Shell" invincibility. Our subcommittee heard repeated, confident assurances by oil industry specialists as well as Federal and state regulators that a major blowout like the 1979 Ixtoc I in the Bay of Campeche or the 2009 oil disaster in the East Timor Sea simply could not occur here, and there was no point reexamining that prospect. After all, the track record of oil industry operations in U.S. waters--and of the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service (MMS) since it was created after the 1969 Santa Barbara blowout--nearly was spotless. The testimony to this obscure state panel is important because it reflects the hubris of the pro-drilling partnership and, from a regional perspective, because North Carolina's offshore waters figure prominently in every "drill baby drill" map, whether from Congress or the president, despite massive economic and ecological liabilities.

Undoubtedly, the most disappointing aspect of this disaster is just how unprepared the industry and government overseers were for a worst-case accident. The real shocker was not that this occurred in U.S. waters, but that it took so long to happen on the MMS watch. After all, thousands of widgets and hundreds of people are engaged in each complex drilling and production exercise, and errors do occur. Similarly, it should be no surprise that it was the Gulf's fragile ecology and tightly linked human communities that drew the short straw, with the now-venerable decision to "do" oil whole hog. The reverberations of that decision pervade the Gulf's history, society, culture, politics, economics, and environment. Just to be clear: it remains inevitable that another serious blowout will occur if the U.S. persists in depending...