er’s assistant, steel frame shopping
carts, embedded in the mud.
The Creek has 'Cable Crossing'
signage at both ends of the bridge,
from the days when it was a shipping
channel and hurricane refuge for
vessels of all shapes and sizes.
At one time, there was a significant
American Eel fishery and bait shops
still harvest killifish from the creek.
The only thing that bothers me is that
no one has taken responsibility for
the hundreds of thousands of plastic
bottles that washed up during storms
and combined sewer overflow
events. The bottles are in various
states of decrepitude, and some
have been here for forty years.
Is this any way to treat a 'Forever
Wild' refuge? We think not. NRPA
will contact the new owners of the
Park/Creek to see if a cleanup can
be enacted.
NATURAL RESOURCES PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
Oil fields in Texas and in the deserts
of the Middle East supplied the
world’s needs after that with interrup-
tions for war and political unrest
causing price spikes. One of the
proximate causes for the attack on
Pearl Harbor was the decision by the
United States to cut off the supply of
oil to Japan. Their war machine was
fueled by American scrap metal and
West Texas crude.
In 1960, the Arab states formed the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries. They were later joined by
Indonesia and Venezuela. OPEC’s
stated goal was to produce stability
in supply and price for both produc-
ers and consumers and avoid dam-
aging fluctuations. In reality, these
countries formed a cartel to control
prices and politics around the world.
By the early ‘70s, OPEC tightened
the screws and produced worldwide
panic and gas lines across the Unit-
ed States. At the time, muscle cars
and luxury vehicles like Cadillacs
and Lincolns dominated American
highways and averaged less than
ten miles per gallon. America felt it
had a natural right to cheap gasoline.
Prices at the time varied from thirty
five to less than fifty cents per gallon.
Oil companies gave away souvenir
cups and free maps (you remember
maps) to attract and keep customers
Engineering advances led drillers to
follow the pools of oil into the ocean.
The first oil rig in water was in a lake
in Ohio in 1891. By the early 1930’s,
drillers built platforms on clam beds
in the Gulf of Mexico. By the late
‘30s, steel rigs like those we are ac-
customed to today reached down a
hundred feet to the bottom. Drilling
platforms today plunge miles into the
ocean.
Explorers followed oil into the Arctic.
Residents of Alaska pay no state tax.
Taxes and fees, in fact, provide an
annual bonus paid to each resident
of Alaska. Global warming has in-
tensified this modern day gold rush.
Despite environmentalist’s concerns
and some protests and demonstra-
tions, Shell Oil is commencing drill-
ing in the Arctic Ocean recently un-
covered by loss of the polar ice cap.
Shell was perturbed by governmen-
tal delays. The EPA and the federal
Mineral Management Administration
who monitor offshore drilling held off
on permits until the company had a
blowout protector available for its
operation. This device automatically
caps a drilling site in the event of an
explosion or other high pressure
event. Shell didn’t think this was
needed as it prepared to explore in a
region which sees some of the most
violent weather on the planet.
It was a faulty blowout protector sup-
plied by Haliburton, a drilling service
contractor (and co-author of the Gulf
War), which caused the Deepwater
Horizon cataclysm in the Gulf of
Mexico. This event which killed oil
workers, caused massive loss of
wildlife and long-term damage to
wetlands and shellfish beds in Tex-
as, Louisiana, Mississippi and Ala-
bama. It threatened the shore econ-
omies of the Florida Keys and their
vital tourist industry as well as that of
the entire state.
This brings us to the state of the oil
industry today and a review of pric-
ing dynamics. What has changed
the face of oil economics is the ad-
vent of unconventional or non-
traditional oil drilling.
(continued next page)
Page 4
Fall 2015
CHEAP GAS: WHAT’S BEHIND
IT, WILL IT LAST, HOW WILL IT
AFFECT US?
By Anthony Rose
Part One: Science, History and Poli-
tics
From a high of over four dollars in
recent memory, gasoline prices on
Staten Island this past summer have
been seen as low as $2.69. The
reasons for this are many and var-
ied.
In your high school Economics text-
book, price was described as simply
a function of supply and demand. In
the real world, things are rarely that
simple.
The oil and gas industry has seen
repetitive cycles of boom and bust
since the first modern successful oil
well was drilled in 1859 by Edwin
Drake just south of Titusville, Penn-
sylvania. This occurred just in time
to save the whales. Prior to the use
of petroleum, fuel for oil lanterns and
lubrication for machinery was sup-
plied by rendering the blubber of the
planet’s whale population which was
already beginning to dwindle.
