'IT'S GOOD VERSUS EVIL': On Gulf oil drilling, David Pleat vows to just say no (with CHAMBER RESOLUTION)

To protect the local beaches and the tourism that depends on them, the Emerald Coast should draw a line in the sand, restaurateur Dave Rauschkolb says,

“It’ll be a black line or a white line,” Rauschkolb, the owner of Bud and Alley’s in Seaside, said last week. “It’ll be drawn in oil or we can draw in the sand with our fingers ... It’s really good versus evil.”

Rauschkolb spoke at a meet-and-greet for David Pleat, an attorney and Sandestin resident running as a Democrat for the Florida House District 7 seat now held by Republican Marti Coley. Pleat, the former chair of the Destin Area Chamber of Commerce, said the issue that concerned him the most was House Bill 1219, which authorizes Gulf drilling.

The bill allows for drilling within three miles of the coast if local government signs off on it. It includes provisions for energy companies to obtain submerged-land easements in order to run pipelines onto the land.

“They say ‘you’re not going to see a thing, I promise you,’ ” Pleat said. “Don’t be fooled by (people) saying it’s off-shore. It’s near shore.”

Pleat told the audience that Texas oil interests have hired so many lobbyists, it would almost be impossible to find a lobbyist to take the anti-drilling side. The bill passed the House, but didn’t have a companion bill in the Senate; however, Pleat said, drilling supporters will inevitably try again.

“For all history, this state has had one sacred cow: You don’t drill in our water, period,” Pleat said, but the oil lobbyists are changing that. “The push is not from the people of Florida — they didn’t go to the Legislature and say ‘We want offshore drilling.’ ”

To read a column by Pleat on the subject, click here.

Several dozen people attended the meet and greet, including local residents, Democratic Party organizers, local business owners and environmentalists. After Pleat finished, the audience sat, discussing the issues between munching on the sweet potato fries, shrimp and veggies that Bud and Alley’s had provided for the event.

“This is like a bomb dropping in our front yard,” Washington Point housewife Grace Marse said. “It’s very frightening to us.”

Another woman said that no matter how much companies promise to pay for beach clean-up, no amount of money can replace the area’s fine white sand if it gets contaminated.

Several attendees said the “line in the sand” should be taken literally, with drilling opponents forming a line along the Florida shores in protest. Rauschkolb told The Log he was going to try organizing a protest for some time next month.

“I understand how some people could say (that) we’ve got to go into the Destin dome,” Rosemary Beach Town Manager and Destin City Councilor Jim Bagby said. “It hasn’t been proven to me. Even though I‘m a conservative, I’m not a ‘drill, baby, drill!’ conservative — I think that’s ridiculous. You have to look at the science, look at the evidence, and I don’t think they’ve done that.”