EDITORIAL: BP's spill gets an upbeat spin

Did Northwest Florida get lucky when BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig blew up three years ago and an out-of-control well belched more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico? Some folks seem to think so.
“One year was rough, but it was not devastating,” the president of the Destin Charter Boat Association said last month.
Added a local resort’s marketing director: “The oil spill was an amazing time. … Many businesses got stronger and smarter as a result of those challenges.”
And there was this, from the head of Santa Rosa County’s Tourist Development Council: “Navarre never had any big problems. At no point (were) there no beautiful white beaches to go to …”
Gosh. Makes you wonder what all the fuss was about. And why is Florida clamoring today for millions of dollars in RESTORE Act funds if we “never had any big problems”?
But of course there were big problems. There were tar balls on beaches. Tourists stayed away. Businesses struggled. We can’t predict the long-term environmental effects.
Don’t misunderstand. We’re glad the local economy bounced back and area residents have adopted a sunnier attitude toward the crisis of 2010. And we know that those who say there weren’t any big problems really mean 1) the national media exaggerated small problems, and 2) it could’ve been so much worse.
But we worry that putting a smiley face on the world’s worst oil spill might make us forget how terrifying it was. It also might make us forget, or ignore, the potential dangers of drilling for oil in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Remember, one of the reasons tourism boosters can say we didn’t have “big problems” in 2010 is that BP’s blowout occurred off Louisiana — not far enough away to keep oil from drifting to Florida, but far enough away to keep our beaches from being slathered in the stuff.
Some politicians today are pressing for oil exploration in parts of the Gulf much closer to Northwest Florida, perhaps as close as three miles from shore.
If that happens, the luck we enjoyed in 2010 could quickly run out.