Huh?

Via Pandagon is an editorial from the WSJ which claims.....

Democrats are going to have to grow up. The oil-rich areas they want to leave untouched are accessible with minimal environmental disturbance, thanks to modern technology. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita flattened terminals across the Gulf of Mexico but didn't cause a single oil spill. (my emphasis)

I'm not sure what they are referring to because.....

More than 500 specialists are working to clean up 44 oil spills ranging from several hundred gallons to nearly 4 million gallons, the U.S. Coast Guard said in an assessment that goes far beyond initial reports of just two significant spills.

The report comes nearly three weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, and reflects the fact that the Coast Guard and other agencies are able to only now tackle environmental problems since the search and rescue effort is winding down.

The Coast Guard estimates more than 7 million gallons of oil were spilled from industrial plants, storage depots and other facilities around southeast Louisiana.

Go here for Many photos of oil spills, damaged or dislodged oil tanks and other oil facility damage.

UPDATE: I think WSJ must be referring to off shore rigs in the Gulf but fail to mention the damage incurred on or near land to facilities, "most of them along the Mississippi River south of New Orleans."

UPDATE: Via comments, Oyster informs us  of post he wrote back in May on the misleading talking point of no major oil spills after Katrina. Here is part of that post though I highly recommend reading all of it:

What troubles me is that, with sky high gas prices angering motorists, I keep hearing echoes of these same hacktacular talking points. For example, Newsweek's Robert Samuelson recently wrote:

There were 4,000 platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit. Despite extensive damage, there were no major spills, says Robbie Diamond of Securing America's Future Energy, an advocacy group.

This is misleading. Eight million gallons of oil spilled out from Louisiana facilities after the storm. (The Exxon Valdez spill totaled 11 million.) And while there weren't any "major" oil spills in the Gulf-- the Coast Guard defines a major spill as 100,000+ gallons-- according to this summary of the May 2006 offshore damage assessment from the U.S. Minerals Management Service :

113 platforms were totally destroyed, and - more importantly - 457 pipelines damaged, 101 of those major lines with 10" or larger diameter. At least 741,000 gallons were spilled from 124 reported sources...

But all we hear now is that there were no "major" oil spills after Katrina. No one mentions that 124 "minor" post-Katrina spills added up to the equivalent of 7 MAJOR spills.

 

And as Oyster points out in comments below---Here are photos of giant oil slicks in the Gulf after Katrina. (Adding--- the narrative at that link discusses oil leaking from offshore platforms)

Last UPDATE: Oyster has a new post up on this which tackles it all far better. Go Read...especially last line

Comments

[Interrobang]

Well, how...convenient of them not to make clear what they were talking about, don't you think? This is the new talking point, and anyone who doesn't get behind the "oil drilling doesn't damage the environment anymore" argument is going to be branded unserious, an environmentalist radical, a hippie Luddite, and all kinds of things. Just watch. You heard it here first.

[oyster]

I wrote about this emerging talking point a while back. Recently they would say that there were no "major" oil spills in the Gulf after Katrina and Rita took down so many oil platforms. This is misleading but narrowly true. There were no "major" spills based on the Coast Guard's definition of "major". However, there were so many "minor" and "significant" oil spills, that they added up to the equivalent of seven "major" spills.

Here are photos of giant oil slicks in the Gulf after Katrina.

It was one of the worst environmental disasters in recent history.

[scout]

Many thanks Oyster. I have updated with part of your post.

What's interesting is WSJ didn't even bother to make a distinction between minor and "major" oil spills. They just said "didn't cause a single oil spill."

[Lex]

I eagerly await the correction and apology that surely must be forthcoming from the WSJ.

Not.

[jame]

And that's leaving Hurricane Rita's damage out of the stats.

[gregp]

Hmmmm. Former LA Insurance Commissioner Jim Brown has been pushing that line, too, after getting it from some wingnut welfare recipient named Humberto Fontova.

[pansypoo]

why are we even STILL using oil?

[Interrobang]

why are we even STILL using oil?

Plastic. Gonna be real hard to switch plastic production to non-petroleum hydrocarbons...

Like I said, watch this morph to "oil production doesn't hurt the environment (much) anymore" Real Soon Now™. It's really gross to be able to watch these things happening in real time and not being able to do anything about them -- like a train wreck in slow motion.

[pansypoo]

i hate platic.