My Take on the BP Gulf Oil Spill

In 1998, my family and I took a trip to Alaska. We toured many spectacular places including Anchorage, Seward, Denali NP, and Valdez.

Valdez is the home of the southern terminus of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, America's northernmost ice-free port, and the namesake of America's second-most devastating oil spill. The supertanker Exxon Valdez (named after the town) ran aground on its way out of Prince William Sound, spilling a massive amount of oil into the sea. There was a devastating environmental impact with iconic images of birds and sea-otters covered in oil (much like Conan O'Brien's "chocolate pelicans" seen on the news today).

As devastating as the oil spill was, Exxon paid the cost of the cleanup, lost fishing revenues, and environmental damage (the calculation of the latter is one of the milestones of Environmental Economics). Exxon damaged a public good, and should most certainly bear the cost of the damage. These costs were ultimately borne by the consumers of oil, but that's exactly how it should be.

The news of the BP gulf oil spill was first reported to us in a sat phone call with Mr. Poole's sixth grade class during our crossing from Galapagos to Marquesas. Since then, we caught little tidbits of the news, but didn't really comprehend the extent of the damage until we watched CNN in Pago Pago.

Water quality obviously hits close to home for me. I live on the ocean, and human impact is very evident - offshore, we can almost measure our distance to land by looking at how blue the water is. In the middle of the ocean, the water is unbelievably clear. It's amazing to jump in, look down, and see your shadow disappear into the depths. A clean ocean is a valuable thing.

I've never sailed in the Gulf of Mexico, but my brother has. He spent time in Galveston, Texas, and he's told stories of his many adventures and regattas. One story he's told is about a place called 'The Graveyard.' This is a part of the Gulf with many old oil rigs and well-heads, some only sticking a few feet above the water and posing a danger to shipping and sailboats. Before the BP spill, this was the one of the greatest negative impacts of offshore drilling.

One of the strongest points taught in Environmental Economics is that there is an optimal and acceptable level of pollution. This can be calculated using many of the econometric tools available to economists and policy makers (take a read through my dissertation at www.lib.ncsu.edu if you want to learn more). It is possible that skeleton rigs and well-heads are an acceptable byproduct of offshore drilling. A massive oil slick is another story.

I'm not familiar with environmental economic research that has looked at the impact of oil spills besides the Exxon Valdez papers (life on a boat keeps me out of touch from current events and new academic research), but I think it would be hard to show that the current oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico could be optimal.

The news we watched in Pago Pago showed BP getting a lot of flak (as they should for damaging a public good), but I'm also confidant in America's legal system and the academic economic community's ability to nail down a dollar value for the social cost of the BP oil spill.

Just as in the Exxon Valdez disaster, BP will end up spending a lot of money on clean-up, damages, and settlements. As a result of these and new drilling regulations, we should expect the cost of gas at the pump to go up.

We may flinch at higher gas prices, but watching the events occurring in the Gulf should help us to understand the total costs of drilling and transporting oil. The risk of environmental damage is extraordinary, and higher prices at the pump will reflect the cost of doing business.

And if higher gas prices pose a problem - you as a consumer have an easy alternative for reducing your expenditure on gasoline:

drive less.

The rest of the ocean will thank you.

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Back On US Soil

Everyplace I have ever been has been very similar. People are polite, helpful, and courteous. Strangers on the street smile and answer your questions. People eat three meals a day, relax in the evenings, and spend time with their families. Kids play sports in the afternoon, go to school during the day, and find every opportunity for mischief.

Aside from the language, the only way to tell that you're in another country is by the 'little things.' People own different cars, live in different types of houses, wear their hair differently, and root for different sports teams. The roads and sidewalks have a different feel to them, police officers wear different uniforms, and road signs use different fonts and colors.

American Samoa is indeed home to an indigenous culture. There is no tourism industry to speak of, and people here walk around town going about their daily lives. However, the little American things around us certainly make us feel like we're at home.

A trip to the post office is like any at home, road signs are cut from the same cloth, and police officers even walk the same way. Although we're still in a different world, American Samoa is home to a certain, vibrant familiarity. If only the sun weren't so hot.

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A Trip to the 'Canons!'

One thing I've been disappointed with on the Society Islands is the quality of the tourist maps.  When you pull up to an island, you see large mountains, waterfalls, and hiking opportunities.  A visit to the tourism office gives you a cartoony map of spas, restaurants, and boat tours.  Other points of interest are indeed labeled, but not necessarily in their right location, nor with instructions on how to access them.

 

Our Bora Bora map had an asterisk next to the road, halfway between our mooring and the main town.  Next to this * was the word 'Canons.'  We learned that during World War II, after the Japanese had abandoned Bora Bora, the Americans seized the island and built a series of canons to protect it.  The largest two were situated on a bluff overlooking the pass.

 

Besides being marked on the map, there was no obvious way to access them.  We attempted to follow one road up the hill, but that ended prematurely.  We eventually decided to ask a local family. 

 

We stopped into the yard of a home and asked the mother of the house for directions to the canons.  She promptly dispatched five elementary school-aged kids, and one older teenager to take us there.  The kids darted up the hill behind the house, and we in-turn, followed.  They all took their shoes off at the bottom, and we (thinking that this was obviously the proper procedure for finding the canons) did the same.

 

Our journey took us straight up a hillside, onto the crest of the hill, and through the woods until we saw them - two massive WWII era cannons.  These were never fired in combat, and the Americans abandoned them at the end of the war, but it was a very cool site to see.  The hillside provided excellent views of the island, pass, and town as well.

 

It was fun climbing up the hill with the kids.  We answered their many questions about the United States, and they answered our questions about Bora Bora.  The next day, the family invited us back to the home to feed us lunch - another example of the overwhelming Polynesian hospitality that we keep running into.

 

If our tourist map was any better, we wouldn't have had such a great time.

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Road Trip!

Being based from a boat, the little bit of land we see is usually limited to exploration by foot or public transit. With the desire to truly see all of Tahiti, we rented a car.

After several days of searching, we found and rented the cheapest and smallest car we could find. A Renault Twingo. About the size of a golf cart, Will at one point remarked that he felt like we were in a go-cart.

Leaving the city and rounding the island counter-clockwise, we stopped at any point that our cartoon-like map of the island suggested. We saw a number of cool things:

- A botanical garden with a waterfall. The first of many waterfalls on our drive, this one ended up being the least impressive. It also had several Tarzan vines that were unable to support my weight.

- The 'Grotto', a set of freshwater caverns at the base of the mountainside. Inside, natural spring water literally rained from the ceiling and the swim was incredibly refreshing. Gauguin claimed that the cavern was so large that he swam for an hour before touching the far wall. He must have been a slow swimmer, because it only took Will about five minutes.

- The Paul Gauguin Museum. So far my second Gauguin museum of the trip (the first being at his final home in Hiva Oa). This Tahitian museum had less paintings than the first (albeit they were all reproductions), but did a better job of telling the story of the man who quit his job as a Parisian stockbroker at the age of 35 and decided to become a painter.

- Teahupoo - the world famous surf spot and site of Laird Hamilton's famous big-wave ride shown at the end of the movie 'Riding Giants.' We met several Americans that had come down and had spent several months living there, just to surf. You can see the famous outer-reef curl from the beach. We spent time body surfing at the shore break with the local kids.

- The 'Trois Cascades' - a massive waterfall that begins as two falls at the top of a mountain, hits a ledge, and then continues to the bottom as one. This is the largest and most impressive waterfall I have ever seen, and the valley surrounding it is reminiscent of the opening scene in Jurassic Park. All the rocks are covered in thick moss and the air is thick with a cool mist.

- 'Venus Point' - we made it to this spit of land just after sunset. This point was made famous as the site where Lieutenant James Cook chose to observe the transit of Venus during his first Pacific voyage. Much of the land we are visiting was named by Cook (The Society Islands were supposedly named after the 'Royal Society of London' that funded his first voyage).

It was a good and productive day. It felt great to see things from a new perspective, but I must say it felt a bit odd being behind the wheel of something that was moving faster than 8 kts.

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Big City Life

We spent several days in Papeete, the largest city and administrative center of French Polynesia. We tied up to the yacht quay right downtown. Within walking distance, we had:

- The downtown market where vendors sell everything from island art, fresh fish, and ready-made food.

- Papeete's Cathedral.

- The ferry and commercial docks.

- Plenty of boat-related shopping including an ACE Hardware (which even sold American flags) and a 'NautiSport' (the local version of West Marine).

- The main square, home of the 'Roulettes' - vans that sold food. Similar to a hot-dog cart, except these were home to French chefs serving up gourmet meals.

- The Robert Wan Pearl Museum - showcase of pearl production and jewelry for sale. Here we saw cases with expensive 14,500,000 PF pearl necklaces.

- A Wal-Mart sized Carre-Four grocery store.

　

Despite all this, the city is anything but large. Almost everything was within walking distance and there are really only one or two main roads in town (and on the island).

However, if you talk to our friend Robert in Takaroa, he'll tell you that Papeete is like Hong Kong to him. In truth, the city is anything but a bustling metropolis, but if you consider the dramatic contrast between Takaroa and Tahiti, it's easy to see why he considers it so.

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