This morning on Florida Public Radio, Hank Fishkind, an economist hired by drilling proponents to estimate the economic benefits of proposed coastal oil drilling in Florida, "quoted" a government report released after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as saying that only 17 barrels of oil were spilled as a result of the storms. In reality, according to the Mineral Management Service (MMS), an arm of the Department of the Interior, Fishkind was off by three digits. The technical report 'Pipeline Damage Assessment From Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf of Mexico' says:

As a result of both storms, 124 spills were reported with a total volume of roughly 17,700 barrels of total petroleum products, of which about 13,200 barrels were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 4,500 barrels were refined products from platforms and rigs. Pipelines were accountable for 72 spills totaling about 7,300 barrels of crude oil and condensate spilled into the GOM.

And even that corrected number needs to be qualified. The 17,700 barrels of petroleum products spilled were categorized as offshore incidents only. Coastal and onshore incidents were outside the scope of this report and in fact the report emphasizes "onshore impacts from localized tank failures were more significant" than offshore rig and pipeline incidents. The Coast Guard, in a letter to the Subcommittee on Homeland Security, supports the MMS report confirming that impacts from the two storms were anything but "minor."

As a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita there were six major (over 1000 barrels per spill), five medium, and over 5000 minor oil and hazmat responses. Additional minor spills continue to be identified and addressed. It is estimated that over 9 million gallons of oil was released (214, 285 barrels), and this total does not include oil released from the 5000 minor spills (less than 500 barrels).

If you compare the MMS's report of offshore oil released at 17, 700 barrels and the Coast Guard's total assessment of at least 214,285 barrels (remember this does not account for over 5000 minor spills), you get a difference of 196,585 barrels. So this means that at least 196,585 barrels of petroleum products were released nearshore, onshore, or inland, where environmental impacts are more severe and clean-up response efforts are costlier. If Florida were to foolishly allow the oil industry to set up shop, it would not only be in the guise of rigs and drilling platforms offshore and pipelines under water, but also in the infrastructure to store and convey oil products on land. And according to the numbers above, it's the infrastructure onshore that potentially poses the greater threat. You can shut down a rig, but you can't shut down a holding tank.

So was 17 barrels just a slip of the tongue? Fishkind was hired to crunch the numbers to make drilling look good. $2.3 billion in annual oil payments? But what of the threat to Florida's coastal economy of $562 billion? Keep your eyes on the zeros, folks. The stakes are high.