24 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • Winter 2018-19 TheCoastalBend.com (Above) Clean-up vessels working to limit the spread of crude oil from the Ixtoc I blowout in the Bay of Campeche, June 1979; (Middle) A large mass of oil tar washing up on a Mustang Island beach, and; (Lower) A young sea turtle covered in Pemex oil in Texas, both in 1979. lons) of crude oil into the Bay of Campeche, located in the southwest corner of the Gulf of Mexico, over the eight months until it was finally capped. Some of the world’s most powerful currents quickly drove the oil, on the ocean’s sur- face in liquid form and below as it hardened into tar, northward onto beaches stretching from Tampico in northern Mexico, to Galveston Island up the Texas Coast. As summer became fall of 1979, the first major complaints related to the Ixtoc spill was from sport fishermen and beachgoers who found themselves in- convenienced by messy tar on feet and fishing lines. By the late fall and into winter, fish and sea turtles were showing up on beaches covered in oil, or having ingested it, or having fed on smaller fish, crabs and other feed stock covered in oil. The resulting death of sea life led a chain reaction that eventually impacted native shorebirds, migrating bird species, and terrestrial mammals living on barrier islands. But it was the tar on Texas beaches—the unsightly, disgusting and generally messy consequence of the Ixtoc spill—that served to educate the general public on the long-lasting after effects of an offshore oil spill. For more than 20 years, tar on the beach was a way of life for coastal dwellers and visitors in the Coastal Bend. By the late 2000’s tar on Texas beaches had just about disappeared, only to return in 2010 following the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The losses and pain resulting from any of the world’s major oil spills are weighed against the economic benefits of offshore drilling for each nation af- fected, and in the case of the U.S., for each coastal state. Texas, Louisiana, Ala- bama and Mississippi find the risk acceptable, and allow oil and gas drilling off their coastlines. Some 7,200 offshore drilling leases are issued in the western and central Gulf of Mexico regions under U.S. jurisdiction; none are issued off either coast of Florida; 79 active leases operate off the coast of Southern Califor- nia, and 489 drilling leases have been issued in Alaska, with all but two located in the Arctic region off the state’s frozen, northern coastline. States like Florida and (most of) California have decided that their coast- lines are more valuable to the economies and lifestyles of their citizens than the monetary and employment benefits of offshore drilling. Texas, the nation’s top producer of oil and natural gas, takes the opposite position on offshore oil and gas production—but the Coastal Bend seems to be the notable exception. The Chosen Islands It is no accident that industrial activity all but ends from Port Aransas, south. Thanks to the efforts of great Texans like Lady Bird Johnson and Edward H. Harte, Padre and Mustang Islands have been reserved, and preserved, for the enjoyment of the gen- eral public and the protection of native and migrating wildlife. The Padre Island National Seashore (PINS), which stretches from about 12 miles south of Bob Hall Pier, 65 miles south to Mansfield Pass, was established in 1968 and protects America’s longest, wildest, untamed beach habitat. The near-shore geological characteristics along sections of PINS known as Big Shell and Little Shell are unlike just about anywhere on earth. The excep- tionally strong, clockwise currents in the northwest corner of the Gulf of Mexico produce violent underwater erosion where the Texas coastline makes its bend to the northeast. The result is shockingly deep “guts” between nearshore sandbars. If you have been down the beach at PINS, you might have experienced the shock of falling into a hole, with water over your head, just a few feet into the ocean. More than shocking, the effect can be downright scary, even for experienced ocean swimmers—and the fear is well justified. Those “first guts” along the beach at Big Shell and Little Shell can be as deep as 13 feet, and can trap large volumes and varieties of fish, shrimp, crabs