Despite the fact that the flow of oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill still hasn’t been stopped nearly two months after it first started, leading to an environmental disaster the likes of which our nation hasn’t seen in its history, Republican U.S. Senate Ron Johnson thinks it’s a swell idea to drill for oil in the Great Lakes. Asked by WisPolitics if he’d support drilling, with the Great Lakes as an example, Johnson responded by saying, “You know, the bottom line is we are an oil-based economy. There’s nothing we’re going to do to get off of that for many years. I think we have to be realistic and recognize that fact and, you know, I, I think we have to, get the oil where it is, but we have to do it where it is.”
While Ron Johnson may think it’s a swell idea to drill for oil in the Great Lakes, which are estimated to hold reserves of oil and natural gas, the environmental impact of drilling for oil in the Great Lakes could be dramatic. Earlier this month the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Deepwater Horizon oil spill had put at risk 78,264 square miles of fishing area, an area nearly exactly the same size as the Great Lakes. Countless communities draw their drinking water from the Great Lakes, and the Great Lakes are also a boon to commercial and sport fishermen, not to mention the tourism dollars they generate, so an oil spill in the Great Lakes would no doubt have a devastating effect on the Great Lakes and the communities that are so reliant on the lakes for fresh water, fishing, and tourism and all the dollars associated with those activities. Drilling for oil in the Great Lakes is just about the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard from a “serious” U.S. Senate candidate, but considering how long it took Ron Johnson to figure out what issues were important to him – not to mention his beliefs on those issues – I’m beginning to wonder just how seriously anyone should take Ron Johnson as a U.S. Senate candidate.
UPDATE: Reached for comment on oil drilling in the Great Lakes, Dave Westlake, Ron Johnson’s opponent in the Republican U.S. Senate primary, said, “I don’t support drilling for oil in the great lakes because the risk is totally unnecessary. We have several other confirmed oil deposits that are not in the world’s largest fresh water source.”
Mr. Johnson:
It’s FRESH water…STUPID!!!!
Exactly.
A surging spill like what’s happening now would likely kill much of the upper Midwest. Milwaukee’s survived the 20th century better than some of our neighbors — we sure aren’t another Detroit or heading that way — but that kind of disaster would ruin life here for a great many people. For instance, we get our drinking water from Lake Michigan. And it’s not just Milwaukee. Milwaukee’s water goes to many of the area suburbs. I imagine Racine, Kenosha, Sheboygan, and all the other coastal towns are dependent on it too. We overcame cryptosporidium, an outbreak which I think was caused by a change in the water management and treatment practices. But I’m pretty sure that our talented water works would be powerless to fight a giant and ongoing oil spill such we face in the Gulf right now.
Give that senator a nice tall glass of water from the folks that enjoyed the beifits of fracting in the movie “Gasland”(which everyone should see).
Matter of fact, just bring truckloads of that water an hook it up to his house for him an his family to enjoy.
Check out the producing oil wells in Michigan at: http://www.michigan.gov/images/FrmtnAllProducingOil_163177_7.jpg
On the east coast of Lake Michigan in Manistee, Michigan just north of the river there is an operating oil pumpjack (nodding donkey) located about 400 feet from the beach. Yes there is oil under Lake Michigan. The Oil Thugs are chomping at the bit.