inside ases | chair’s corner
Oil Spill as Catalyst
DIVISIONS
Divisions Chair:
David L. Comis
dcomis@sentech.org
Clean Energy and Water
Chair: Nathan Mitten
mittenater@gmail.com
Concentrating Solar Power
Chair: Alison Mason
alison.mason@reflectechsolar.com
Sustainable Transportation
Chair: Scotte Elliott
selliott@greentechconsultants.com
Resource Applications
Chair: Justin Robinson
jrobinson@campbellsci.com
Small Wind
Co-chairs: Trudy Forsyth
trudy_forsyth@nrel.gov
Karin Sinclair
karin_sinclair@nrel.gov
Solar Buildings
Chair: Vikram Sami
vssami@yahoo.com
Solar Electric
Chair: Joe McCabe
energyideas@gmail.com
Solar Thermal
Chair: Barry Butler
barry@butlersunsolutions.com
Sustainability
Chair: David Panich
dpanich@pnarch.com
If we’re smart, the Deepwater Horizon disaster
will help move renewable energy forward.
april’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and itshor-rifying aftermath, brought
to mind other industrial
accidents related to the
purveyance of our energy
feedstock. It is still too early
to tell what lessons will be
learned from the gulf spill,
but past disasters have been
transformative. They’ve
helped us challenge the
status quo and realign our
thinking, whether or not we
were directly impacted.
In 1969, off the coast of
Santa Barbara, Calif., drilling at Union Oil’s offshore
platform Alpha went terribly awry. The company had
been granted a waiver by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) permitting them to use a shorter
pipe casing. That meant operating to a lower safety
threshold. What should have been a standard procedure resulted in a massive blowout, dumping 3
By marGot mCDonaLD, aIa, LEED aP
Margot McDonald
is chair of ASES and
teaches architecture
at California Polytechnic State University.
Contact her at chair@
ases.org.
BOARD COMMITTEES
Education
Chair: Nathalie Osborn
education@ases.org
International
Chair: John Reynolds
international@ases.org
Policy
Chair: David Hill
policy@ases.org
It is still too early to tell what
lessons will be learned from
the gulf spill, but past disasters
have been transformative.
MEMBER COMMITTEES
Membership
Chair: Paulette Middleton
membership@ases.org
Ethics
ethics@ases.org
million gallons of oil into the Santa Barbara Chan-
nel over the next 11 days. The oil washed up along
35 miles of coastline, up to 6 inches thick in some
places, and covered more than 800 square miles of
the ocean’s surface. The ecological impact on fish,
mammals, sea birds, and their habitats, including kelp
forests and intertidal zones, was catastrophic. The
impact on the human psyche was to turn anger and
frustration into unparalleled action. It was the perfect
storm for public outrage. At the Santa Barbara News
Press, editor Thomas Storke wrote, “Never in my long
lifetime have I ever seen such an aroused populace
at the grassroots level. This oil pollution has done
something I have never seen before in Santa Barbara
88 September/October 2010 SOLAR TODA Y solartoday.org
Copyright © 2010 by the American Solar Energy Society Inc. All rights reserved.
— it has united citizens of all political persuasions in
a truly nonpartisan cause.”
Unification facilitates action. Between the early
1960s and the mid-1970s, we enjoyed a period of
environmental awakening leading to political action.
We created legislation to control air and water pol-
lution, regulate pesticides, protect scenic rivers and
coastal areas, and more. During that era —
• President Nixon signed the National Environ-
mental Policy Act of 1969, establishing, in July 1970,
the Environmental Protection Agency. ( epa.gov/
compliance/nepa/)
