Town takes center stage in fight over oil policies

SEASIDE -- This award-winning Gulf Coast community known for its boardwalks and cupolas, artsy shops and quaint cottages is ground zero Saturday for the next debate over the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Here, Dave Rauschkolb, the founder of Hands Across the Sand, will join with others on the town's emerald beaches as communities in 50 states and 33 countries from Greenland to Turkey do the same. Their message: ``No to offshore oil drilling. Yes to clean energy.''

Their goal is a show of force to politicians and corporations that it's time for policies that wean the world off its dependence on fossil fuels and increase the demand for alternative energy.

``They are paying a lot of lip service to clean energy,'' Rauschkolb says. ``The only way we are going to get off our dependence on oil is to create the economic opportunity for these industries to get a foothold in America.''

It's not what Rauschkolb expected to be doing when he organized his first Hands Across the Sand event on Feb. 13 this year. Back then, his goal was to tell Florida legislators to stop the talk of drilling in Florida waters as a way to solve the state's budget gap.

It worked. Legislators backed down from pursuing legislation -- for this year. But the chief proponent, Rep. Dean Cannon, a Winter Park Republican, made plans to bring it up again when he becomes House speaker in 2011.

Two days after Cannon released his proposed bill for drilling six miles off Florida's shores, the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

``It's our worst nightmare,'' Rauschkolb said. ``The very idea we feared had come to our doorstep.''

Then one day, as Rauschkolb was feeding his then 5-month-old daughter, he decided he had to organize another protest. ``I said to myself, now has got to be the time to see if we can create this national movement,'' he said. ``We have to do this not only for ourselves, but for our future.''

Rauschkolb, a surfer, started Bud and Alley's restaurant in 1986, when Seaside was wowing urban planners with its novel narrow streets, pastel-colored homes and urban-village theme on the coast. Now, when he thinks about the damage the oil is doing to the powdery white sands and the community he has grown to love, he is moved to tears.

``My daughter may never know what I've cherished and what we all cherish on the beautiful Gulf of Mexico,'' he said. ``It's not fair. They very well might not be able to stop this leak and what's going to happen to the coastal economies of five states? How can you even keep track of the emotional toll that's going to be taken on people whose lives are going to be scattered to the wind?''

Within days of his decision to revive another Hands Across the Sand demonstration, he flew to Washington, D.C., and met with top officials at the Sierra Club, who agreed to help him spread the word.

Last time, thousands of Floridians representing 60 towns and cities and over 90 beaches joined what became the largest anti-oil-drilling gathering in state history. This time, the idea has gone viral. Events are planned in 820 locations, every coastal state and in hundreds of ``solidarity events'' in interior cities.

Rauschkolb's website, handsacrossthesand.com, allows individuals to print templates of posters, T-shirts and newspaper ads to promote the events. ``It's a self-perpetuating opportunity for change,'' he said.

The talk has already shifted in the state Legislature. Cannon has declared the pursuit of drilling in Florida waters dead, at least for his term. His counterpart in the Senate, incoming President Mike Haridopolos of Indialantic, who had also endorsed the oil drilling bill, is now organizing a clean energy summit for July 8.

``I always believe in trust but verify, and we did that with oil, which had a 40-year record of no spills, and that part of the equation failed,'' Haridopolos said.

Although the Legislature has rejected renewable energy proposals for the last three years, Haridopolos believes there is new support for it -- from biomass to solar. He is even open to calling a legislative session this summer, as long as the goal is to pursue incentives to renewable energy.

So will the message of demonstrators work?

On Wednesday night, as a rock band gave a free concert on the Seaside village green, the town was teeming with visitors. Cars with tags from Texas to New York packed the streets and people were buzzing about oil, which had arrived on Pensacola Beach that morning.

``We're lucky, we're going to be one of the last groups to enjoy it,'' said Ethel LaBranch, who was visiting nearby Santa Rosa Beach with her family from Dallas.

She was aware of the Hands Across the Sand event, but had doubts whether the protest movement that began there will change behavior.

``Everyone thinks its a good idea to get away from oil, but how long will it take to transfer our focus? I think it's a long way away,'' she said.

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