The Transboundary Agreement is not just about the cost of gas and the environment

of the shrimping industry, I was one of those sightseers told to get out of the way.  (See my detailed documentation of Ixtoc I in Condos and Cannibals, Robert Lee Maril, Texas A&M University Press, 1986.)

The Coast Guard set up a series of ineffective barriers across the Brazos-Santiago Pass to protect the fragile Laguna Madre.  Similar efforts were attempted further up the coast.  As Ixtox I each day continued to leak thousands of barrels of crude-Pemex and Sedco could not figure out how to cap the offshore well-the spill moved up to Port Mansfield, a tiny fishing community, then began the long trek past the enormous King Ranch bordering the bays and inlets of South Texas.

Bucket loads of Texas politicians loyal to Governor Clements and his party helicoptered to the oil-covered beaches and swore, in spite of what lay before their very eyes, that Texas beaches had been spared.  The national and local media, each for different reasons, sided with the politicians.  But hordes of tourists were not blind nor lacked the sense of smell. The city of South Padre Island remained a ghost town throughout the month of August and well past Labor Day when any possibility of business disappeared for the season. 

At last Texas and Texans did get lucky.  After six weeks the seasonal winds changed direction and blew the spill away from the beaches. 

Since there was no official spill as declared by the politicians and the media, there was little or no need for scientific research on the impact of Ixtoc I on the coastal ecology, the loss of business to tourist communities, and the potential impact on the Texas shrimp industry, the largest in our country.  That just left certain legal issues: my phone was regularly ringing for two years after this oil spill.

That was 1979.  A lot has happened since Ictox I never officially reached the Texas Coast. 

The most recent event demanding our scrutiny is the “Transboundary Agreement” reached between the United States and Mexico that regulates oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico.  The Transboundary Agreement was signed off on by both countries on 20 February 2012, allowing Pemex to begin deep-water offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

In fact Pemex has already drilled more than twelve sample wells to date that include exploratory holes at depths of more than 6,000 feet.  Most industry experts agree that Pemex never the less lacks the necessary expertise in deep-water drilling.  Mexico’s own head of its National Hydrocarbons Commission has, according to the New York Times, stated that his government agency does not have the technical expertise or budget to adequately regulate and monitor Pemex, 

In a worse case scenario, say one like the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, Pemex thus will be forced to rely on the expertise of our petroleum industry. In today’s world does anyone see potential problems here reaching far beyond environmental impact and the price of gas at the pump? 

While environmental degradation is a very serious concern and Americans are not used to paying for $4 a gallon gas, the world has changed significantly since 1979.  For one the Mexican government cannot control its powerful criminal organizations. Secondly international terrorists are a real threat to our national security and the security of our friends and allies.  Just how many terrorists in a small boat would it take to overrun one of Pemex’s deepwater rigs?  How monstrous might this environmental tragedy then become both for the citizens of Mexico and the United States?

Before the Transboundary Agreement is ratified and Pemex in earnest begins deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, we should demand that our government closely examine all of the issues involved.  Including national security. 

Robert Lee Maril, a professor of Sociology at East Carolina University and founding director of the Center for Diversity and Inequality Research, is the author of The Fence: National Security, Public Safety, and Illegal Immigration along the U.S.-Mexico Border  He blogs at leemaril.com.