Drilling ban good for us, tourism, Florida

There was the Norwegian helicopter pilot and his family.

Four British sun-worshippers.

An older fellow from Ohio on his annual spring fishing trip, too.

Tourists.

What brings them to mind is the Obama administration’s decision last week to let the drilling ban stand along Florida’s coastline.

A welcome decision, indeed.

One vital to our tourism industry.

Florida’s lifeblood.

Something those visitors said showed how fragile it can be.

They had come to Anna Maria Island just days after BP’s Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank in April, a catastrophe that poured nearly 175 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over the next five months.

Nary a drop would touch AMI’s pristine shores.

Yet it did not matter to those visitors.

Had they been able to change their plans, they’d have done so.

It was the perception of the threat that would’ve kept them away and sent them elsewhere to spend their money.


Read more Sunday in Mannix About Manatee.