Whale Friendly High Pump Prices

I wonder which memory is fresher in the minds of Washingtonians – the Exxon Valdez oil spill, or three dollar a gallon gasoline? Senator Maria Cantwell is betting that her voters will quickly forget this autumn’s painful pump prices and recall a long ago oil spill instead.
Cantwell is doing her best to keep fuel supplies tight and prices high in the Northwest by invoking environmentalism’s favorite boogiemen, Joseph Hazelwood and the Exxon Valdez.
"We learned valuable lessons when nearly 11 million gallons of oil spilled in Alaska's Prince William Sound," Cantwell said. "We don't need to relearn them in Puget Sound."
For those of you too young to remember, on March 23, 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez, skippered by an allegedly drunk Joseph Hazelwood, ran aground on a small reef in Prince William Sound, tearing the vessel’s hull open and spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean. For weeks, television and newsmagazines showed pictures of pitiful birds and sea otters covered with the goo. And ever since, environmentalists have revived those images whenever needed to demonize the oil industry.
The lesson that Cantwell wants us to take from Alaska’s experience is – what? That we shouldn’t entrust alcoholic ship’s captains to drive oil tanker? I’m sure that Exxon, which had to cough up billions, doesn’t need to be reminded. The other oil companies are smart enough to learn from Exxon’s experience. And navigation technology has advanced enormously since then, so that even with a fifth of cheap bourbon under his belt, Joseph Hazelwood would find it difficult to repeat his mistake.
Nevertheless, Cantwell has chosen to stake her shaky political future on blocking efforts to remove an economic chokehold that Warren Magnuson inflicted on the state in 1977. A provision he inserted into the Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits the construction of new refineries or oil tanker terminals in Puget Sound unless it can be proved that Washington State needs them for its own use. How this is to be determined is unclear, considering that gasoline travels easily across state lines. It’s another way of saying, “not in my backyard,” and leaves Washington exposed to shortages, just as California starved itself of electricity for forcing power generators outside it borders.
But Maria Cantwell’s environmental hairy chest pounding display does pay homage to one of the great myths that intoxicates the average Seattleista - that their beautiful Puget Sound is pure, pristine and unspoiled. I recently took a brief vacation deep behind enemy lines, on Orcas Island, where I came across weed patches in front of people’s houses that had signs reading, “whale-friendly lawn.” The sign boasted that the owner of that lawn had applied no fertilizer or herbicides to improve its appearance, as though the whale would notice. Why he couldn’t pull weeds was left unexplained. But the holier than though attitude was quite clear.
In fact, Puget Sound is quite spoiled. Shellfish from wide areas are already considered unsafe to eat. The sound is contaminated by rainfall runoff from Seattle area back yards that carry E. coli bacteria from dog poop. Will Cantwell protect the sound from that? The birth control pills that west side women use find their way into the sound through their urine and are sterilizing salmon.
Seattle doesn’t need an oil spill to cause an environmental disaster in their sound. By simply going about their normal lives, Seattleistas are doing more damage than could reasonably be expected from increased oil tanker traffic.
But, what the heck? Maria Cantwell just might be able to pull it off. Westsiders are nothing if not gullible. Also, while on Orcas Island, I wandered into a little, hippie version of a convenience store, with its shelves packed with supposedly organic, handcrafted goods. About three feet of shelf space was filled with one-liter water bottles with the brand name, “Water for Peace.” The bottles sold for $2.00 each. Why paying so extravagantly for water would advance the cause of world peace was left unexplained. But the stuff seemed to sell well. Let’s face it – as long as there are enough people in this state foolish enough to spend $2.00 for a bottle of Water for Peace, there’s a good chance that Maria Cantwell can get reelected by selling her constituents that paying $3.00 per gallon gasoline will save the whales.