In October of 2009, this Tampa City Council passed a resolution opposing the expansion of offshore oil drilling within 3 miles of the coast of Florida and asking the Governor not to call a special session to create new legislation in favor of drilling. The Governor is now calling for a special session to ban offshore drilling.
Mariella Smith brought to my attention an article in Bay Soundings: Tampa Bay's Science and Nature News Journal promoting offshore drilling before publishing a post about it on Creative Loafing Tampa's Green Community website.
The Board of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council (TBRPC) does not have editorial input on Bay Soundings and, as it turns out, few if any, of our members had seen the issue. I brought this up at last week’s TBRPC meeting and suggested that after this embarrassing article, there needs to be a counter article in the next issue. I pointed out that the editor needs to be more fair-minded and that the publication is paid for through tax dollars and the revenue from license plates. I feel confident that the Bay Soundings editorial staff will be more responsible in future publications.
At the TBRPC board meeting, we discussed offshore drilling in the context of the current disastrous event. It was brought to light that the Regional Planning Council has taken a stance against oil drilling and it has been adopted in our goals and policies manual. Our board went further, asking that we pass a new resolution that will ban drilling at an even greater distance than the currently recommended 100 miles from the coast. We are inviting an expert from Mississippi to speak to us at a future meeting on the methods of cleanup.
This article appears in May 20-26, 2010.