Draining a national treasure

The Sun Herald Editorial, 4/13/8

T he Department of Energy spent much of last week trying to explain to people how taking 50 million gallons of water a day from the Pascagoula River, using it to dissolve salt from a salt dome, then pumping the brine out into water south of Horn Island is a good idea.

Hmm. I don’t know about you, but somehow that just doesn’t sound like such a smart thing. Nothing I heard or read last week about the plans to hollow out the Richton salt dome to store the nation’s oil convinced me otherwise.

I understand we have to have strategic petroleum reserves. I’m all for that. And I’ve never considered myself too much of a NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) type. I suppose I don’t have anything against them using the Richton, or any other, salt dome in Mississippi.

But why in the blue blazes would we suck water from the nation’s last and only undammed river – an unspoiled national treasure – to do it? That’s not to mention the risk to another unspoiled national treasure, Horn Island.