Letter of the week: August 4

In recognition of the importance of readers' contributions to the letters page, the newspaper each week selects a Letter of the Week, with a book prize courtesy of Longacre Press. This week's winner is Ewan McDougall, of Broad Bay, for his letter questioning the wisdom of deep-sea drilling. He receives a copy of Siege (Random House), by Simon Kernick. Ewan's letter was published on Tuesday.

Deep-sea drilling
Why did New Zealanders work so hard to make Aotearoa nuclear free?

I guess some are of a pacifist nature and abhor war and weapons in general. But the vast majority opposed nuclear power and weapons because of the obvious catastrophic effects of a nuclear accident, for example, an event like the Chernobyl or Fukushima disasters.

Why then is the Key Government so hell-bent on drilling oil-wells at a depth much greater than the Deep Sea Horizon Well [1500m] which blew and caused a catastrophe for the Gulf of Mexico?

Does Mr Key have blind faith in the oil companies' ability to contain such a disaster?

But we have no good evidence that anyone can quickly and successfully contain a major spill at such great depths. Perhaps Mr Key has a secret rabbit's foot which gives him the nice warm feeling that "nothing will ever go wrong".

I am not so superstitious.

Ewan McDougall
Broad Bay