http://www.eenews.net/eed/

Friday, January 22, 2010

by Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter, Senior reporter Darren Samuelsohn contributed.  Special thanks to Richard Charter

The idea of passing an energy bill without cap and trade is gaining currency on Capitol Hill as Democratic leaders look at scaling back their agenda. But it may run into trouble from liberal and coastal lawmakers who oppose more offshore drilling.

“Energy only” backers have portrayed such legislation as a path to a bipartisan achievement, particularly in the wake of the Massachusetts Senate election widely seen as a repudiation of the Democrats’ ambitious agenda.

But while liberal and coastal lawmakers might have been willing to allow more offshore drilling in exchange for a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, they are less likely to give up that leverage if a cap-and-trade plan is jettisoned.

“There are provisions that are more difficult for us to accept if they’re not part of a comprehensive bill,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). “In a broader package I am more understanding of some of the other regional concerns.”

Conversely, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is trying to put together a joint climate and energy bill has been telling Republicans that they cannot get the offshore drilling, nuclear and other pro-production measures they want without a cap.

“I can get every Republican for an energy independence bill, OK? But there are not 60 votes,” Graham said. “You’re not going to get the nuclear power provisions you want unless you do something on emission controls.”

The energy bill (S. 1462) passed by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in June included a provision by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to open areas as close as 45 miles from Florida’s gulf coast to drilling.

The measure also includes a renewable electricity standard requiring utilities to provide 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2021. Environmentalists have called for a 25 percent standard by 2025.

Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) still wants his committee’s bill to be paired with a cap-and-trade system. But Dorgan has pushed for that legislation to be passed on its own, without the cap-and-trade plans being written in other committees.

“It will move us in the direction of a lower-carbon future,” Dorgan said. He added that most areas of the outer continental shelf were opened to drilling a year ago. His bill would open one of the last places that is still off limits.

“Offshore drilling is a carrot,” Dorgan said. “It’s a carrot that’s already been consumed.”

But Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is likely to filibuster any effort to expand drilling off the shores of his home state. Without an emissions cap, liberal Democrats are even less likely to try to help override his objections.

“Enviros would revolt and could easily peel off enough liberal senators to keep them from getting 60 votes,” said a House Democratic leadership aide, “at least in the short term.”  Another House Democratic aide who described the energy-only bill as a likely compromise said it would still need the Florida senator’s support to pass. The aide said Dorgan and Nelson would have to work out some sort of compromise about how far off the coast the drilling would be.

And prospects would not be much better in the House. The House cap-and-trade bill did not include any offshore drilling. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is a longtime foe of offshore drilling and once derided the idea that it might lower gas prices as a “hoax.”    Pelosi relented in the face of Republican pressure and high gas prices in 2008 and allowed a longstanding moratorium on coastal drilling to expire, although the GOP and oil industry have criticized the Obama administration’s progress on approving leases.

Though it is being shepherded by Dorgan, supporters see offshore drilling as a way to bring Republicans on board to an energy bill. Energy companies say drilling is popular not only with the GOP but the general public as well.

“The American people overwhelmingly support these common-sense efforts, and leaders in Washington should too,” said Bruce Vincent, president of Swift Energy and chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

Supporters also note that liberals and environmentalists would still be getting a renewable energy standard that would cut greenhouse emissions by power plants. But that won’t satisfy most climate activists. Daniel Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, said the RES in the Senate energy bill has too many loopholes.

Weiss looks at drilling as the political equivalent of dessert. Measures to reduce greenhouse gases amount to eating your vegetables, he said — not as pleasant, but better in the long run. He worries that any such bill will have too much sugar and not enough broccoli.
“We need a balanced energy menu with vegetables and protein, not just a pile of Cool Whip,” Weiss said.

 
Tues., Jan. 19, 2010
Contact:  Dan McLaughlin; 202-224-1679 / 202-309-1985
www.billnelson.senate.gov
 
 
 
Following is Sen. Bill Nelson’s response to a report today on oil drilling by Securing America’s Future Energy:
 
It should come as no surprise that a group that touts drilling off Florida should produce a study saying drilling there is okay.  Its report must be considered against a backdrop: it was produced by a group that helped craft and promote legislation that would allow oil drilling 45 miles off Florida’s coast.
 
And it’s probably no coincidence that the sponsor of the legislation today also touted the study in question while renewing a call for passage of his bill.
 
As for the report citing claims by former or retired military that armed forces training off Florida could co-exist with drilling, the Pentagon for years has said otherwise.  It remains the Defense Department’s policy that military exercises and training in the eastern Gulf are incompatible with oil drilling operations.
 
The bottom line remains the same: oil drilling and military training don’t mix; and, there isn’t enough oil off Florida’s coast to make a difference in our country’s energy independence; nor is there enough to risk the environment and tourism-driven economy of the nation’s fourth largest state.

 http://www.jaxobserver.com/2010/01/19/dorgan-military-officials-to-release-pro-drilling/

Provided by Richard Chartr From: News Service of Florida – Jan 19th, 2010

A leading congressional proponent of offshore drilling is expected to take part in the release next week of a new report promoting further oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, including waters close to Florida.  
North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan, who last year included a measure aimed at promoting drilling in federal waters 45 miles off Florida, is scheduled to speak in a Tuesday conference call detailing the potential benefit to “military readiness” stemming from more exploration.
Joining Dorgan on the call will be several retired, high-ranking Navy and Marine officers, and John Lehman, former Navy Secretary under President Reagan.
The call is being put together by Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE), a non-profit pro-drilling organization urging national energy independence as a security and jobs-creating measure.
The show of military muscle – even of the retired variety – comes as the House’s effort to lift the state’s 20-year ban on oil-drilling within Florida waters drew further criticism from the commander of the Panhandle’s Eglin Air Force Base.
Col. Bruce McClintock, who leads the 5,400 personnel stationed at the base, this week told the House Military Affairs and Local Policy Committee that offshore drilling could prove an obstacle to flight testing and missile-firing exercises in the Gulf.
Military representatives in the past also have warned about potential interference to jet-flight training over the Gulf.
“We would be impacted,” Col. Arnie Bunch, vice-commander of Eglin Air Force Base’s Air Armament Center, told a state Senate committee last last year.
Dorgan, who recently announced he was not seeking re-election this fall, has clashed over drilling with Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, who has long used military needs in the Gulf as a weapon against expanded oil- and gas-exploration.
“The military has been very clear on this issue,” Dan McLaughlin, a Nelson spokesman, told the News Service of Florida on Friday. “But I don’t know how SAFE can present this as something that will help the military.”
Dorgan has been a prominent figure on oil drilling, with North Dakota a major energy producer and the senator serving as the second-highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He also chairs a budget subcommittee that shapes Energy Department spending.
Along the Florida Gulf, 30 cities, counties, local chambers and other organizations have approved resolutions denouncing drilling – with critics rooted in some of Florida’s most conservative-leaning voting districts.
Panama City Mayor Scott Clemons, a former Democratic state legislator, said that like many Panhandle locales, his city’s resolution against drilling stems chiefly from fear of its potential impact on military missions from nearby Tyndall Air Force Base and Naval Support Activity-Panama City.
“It’s really a double whammy here,” Clemons said.
The state House has been pushing to keep the oil-drilling push alive in the face of resistance in the Senate, where President Jeff Atwater ordered a committee to conduct a wide-ranging review of the issue’s environmental impact, threatening prospects for the measure emerging during the spring session.
Florida Energy Associates, the group of self-described independent oil producers behind the idea, last week told the News Service it planned to shed two-thirds of the 30 lobbyists it has hired to work the issue. The downsizing is cast as a cost-saver that could be reversed when there are signs of movement within the Senate, the organization has said.

Inside EPA’s Water Policy Report    January 19, 2010 compliments of Richard Charter

EPA’s ‘No Impact’ Finding For Gulf Drilling Could Spur NEPA Challenge

An EPA general permit for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico could spur a legal challenge because of its failure to adequately consider the expanded drilling the permit will allow due to the passage of the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA) in 2006, according to environmentalist sources.

EPA Region IV in late December proposed reissuing a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) general permit for the Outer Continental Shelf of the Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil and gas drilling, issuing a preliminary finding of no significant impact (FONSI) letter based on an environmental assessment (EA). /Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com./

But one environmental source says the agency should have performed a more extensive environmental analysis known as an environmental impact statement (EIS), noting that GOMESA opened some 8 million acres of previously protected offshore areas to drilling, which will have an effect on the Gulf’s overall water quality. The FONSI acknowledges but does not substantially address the impact of GOMESA on water quality.

Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), federal agencies are required to perform an EA to determine whether a federal undertaking would significantly affect the environment, and if the answer is yes, the agency is required to prepare an EIS. Alternatively, a federal agency may start with an EIS if the agency anticipates the undertaking may significantly impact the environment or if a project is environmentally controversial.

“NEPA comes into play when there’s some major or significant change, either in the permit or the discharge,” the source says. “I think the expansion of an existing permit into brand new areas without [an EIS]. . . is not going to pass muster with the courts.”

An oil and gas industry spokesman says industry also is concerned that the EA may not have been sufficient to stave off a legal challenge from the environmental community. But the source says the FONSI is correct in its overall finding that offshore drilling can be done in a safe and efficient manner and that there is no reason not to allow the permit to be renewed.

Industry thinks the lack of an EIS “is a valid concern, but we think that if someone in the environmental community is going to sue, they’re going to sue regardless” of whether an EA or EIS was performed, the spokesman says.

In the EA, the agency acknowledges that 8.3 million previously reserved acres in the Gulf of Mexico fall under the purview of the NPDES general permit as a result of GOMESA, including 5.8 million acres that were under moratorium. But the EA says further environmental analysis will occur when the Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) develops a lease sale for those acres, noting that MMS will “most likely” conduct an EIS to consider the environmental impacts of drilling.

The environmental source, however, says that acknowledgment is insufficient to ensure that drilling operations are adequately protective of the environment, and highlights the shortcomings of the general water permit itself. For example, the source points to a controversy in the early 2000′s about elevated levels of mercury in Gulf waters that originated in drilling mud — pressurized fluid that is used to bore holes in the earth (/Water Policy Report/, Feb. 12, 2001).

There is also increased interest in determining whether produced water — water released from subterranean pockets or aquifers mixed with surface water used to force oil or gas out of its pocket — may be a source of radioactive contamination from elements like radium. The environmental source says this phenomenon has been well documented in surface mining but is relatively unknown in the offshore arena, spurring a new realm of concern about the environmental impacts of offshore drilling, the source says.

“You’re dealing with very large areas, and I don’t think you’re dealing with the level of detail necessary” to protect the environment, the source says. “These kinds of area-wide permits don’t catch a lot of pollution.”

Another environmental source says the FONSI sparks concerns that industry could be ramping up another effort to make an end-run at offshore drilling in areas that have been closed, either for ecological or political reasons. In the past, the source says, offshore drilling in Florida had been a political taboo because of the potential threat a discharge could pose to the large tourism industry associated with the state’s beaches. But in recent years, with the spiking price of oil, state politics have been more mixed. Whether the permit in itself is an indicator of such a move or not is unclear, but it is at least one less hurdle in the way of expanded energy extraction.

“It makes me wonder what the plan is here,” the source says. “It may signal that some in [industry] think they can make a run at offshore gas fields.”

The State of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection says they are reviewing the permit and are withholding comment pending the completion of their review.

An EPA spokeswoman says the agency conducted two EIS studies on the Gulf, one between 1996 and 1998 and a supplemental EIS in 2004, and that the EA conducted as part of reissuing the NPDES general permit was meant to address any issues that have arisen since the 2004 EIS. In the agency’s view, the spokeswoman says the EA was sufficient to cover any water quality concerns that may have arisen as part of GOMESA or from any other concerns. — /John Heltman /

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=marcellus-shale-natural-gas-drilling-radioactive-wastewater

Scientific American November 9, 2009

Wastewater from natural gas drilling in New York State is radioactive, as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink
By Abrahm Lustgarten and ProPublica   
 WASTEWATER FOUNTAIN: Natural gas drilling in New York State could introduce unsafe levels of radiation into the drinking water.
FLICKR/JOSHME17

As New York gears up for a massive expansion of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, state officials have made a potentially troubling discovery about the wastewater created by the process: It’s radioactive. And they have yet to say how they’ll deal with it.

The information comes from New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation, which analyzed 13 samples of wastewater brought thousands of feet to the surface from drilling and found that they contain levels of radium 226, a derivative of uranium, as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink.

The findings, if backed up with more tests, have several implications: The energy industry would likely face stiffer regulations and expenses, and have more trouble finding treatment plants to accept its waste-if any would at all. Companies would need to license their waste handlers and test their workers for radioactive exposure, and possibly ship waste across the country. And the state would have to sort out how its laws for radioactive waste might apply to drilling and how the waste could impact water supplies and the environment.

What is less clear is how the wastewater may affect the health of New Yorkers, since the danger depends on how much radiation people are exposed to and how they are exposed to it. Radium is known to cause bone, liver and breast cancers, and the EPA publishes exposure guidelines for it, but there is still disagreement over exactly how dangerous low-level doses can be to workers who handle it, or to the public.

The DEC has yet to address any of these questions. But New York’s Health Department raised concerns about the amount of radioactive materials in the wastewater in a confidential letter to the DEC’s oil and gas regulators in July.

“Handling and disposal of this wastewater could be a public health concern,” DOH officials said in the letter, which was obtained by ProPublica. “The issues raised are not trivial, but are also not insurmountable.”

The letter warned that the state may have difficulty disposing of the drilling waste, that thorough testing will be needed at water treatment plants, and that workers may need to be monitored for radiation as much as they might be at nuclear facilities.

Health Department officials declined to comment on the letter. The DEC sent an e-mail response to questions about the radioactivity stating that “concentrations are generally not a problem for water discharges, or in solid waste streams” in New York State. But the agency did not directly address the radioactivity levels, which were disclosed in the appendices of the agency’s environmental review of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, released September 30.

The review did not calculate how much radioactivity people may be exposed to, even though such calculations are routinely completed by scientists studying radiation exposure. Yet the review concluded that radiation levels were “very low” and that the wastewater “does not present a risk to workers.” DEC officials declined to explain how they reached this conclusion.
Although the review pointed to a possible need for radioactive licensing and disposal for certain materials, and it looked at other states with laws aimed at radioactive waste from drilling, the DEC said there is no precedent for examining how these radioactive materials might affect the environment when brought to the surface at the volumes and scale expected in New York. And it said that more study is needed before the DEC can lay out precise plans to deal with the waste.
In comments to ProPublica, the DEC emphasized that the environmental review proposes testing all wastewater for radioactivity before it is allowed to leave the well site, and said that the volumes of brine water, which contain most of the radioactivity detected, would be far less than the volumes of fluid from hydraulic fracturing that are removed from the well.

What scientists call naturally occurring radioactive materials-known by the acronym NORM-are common in oil and gas drilling waste, and especially in brine, the dirty water that has been soaking in the shale for centuries. Radium, a potent carcinogen, is among the most dangerous of these metals because it gives off radon gas, accumulates in plants and vegetables and takes 1,600 years to decay. Geologists say radioactivity levels can vary across the Marcellus, but the tests taken so far suggest the amount of radioactive material measured in New York is far higher than in many other places.

The state took its 13 samples-11 of which significantly exceeded legal limits-between October 2008 and April 2009. The DEC did not respond to questions about whether additional sampling has begun or whether the state would begin issuing drilling permits before the radioactivity issues are resolved. The DEC told ProPublica it did not know where the wastewater would be treated.

“It’s got to go somewhere,” said Theodore Adams, a radiation remediation and water treatment consultant with 30 years of experience with radioactive waste. “It’s not going to just go away.”

A Vague Threat

Determining the health threat that radioactive material poses to workers and to the public is complicated. Measuring human exposure-which is quantified in doses of millirems per year-from radiation is notoriously difficult, in part because it depends on variables like whether objects interfere with radiation, or how sustained exposure is over long periods of time.

Gas industry workers, for example, would almost certainly face an increased risk of cancer if they worked in a confined space where radon gas, a leading cause of lung cancer and a derivative of radium, can collect to dangerous levels. They would also be at risk if they somehow swallowed or breathed fumes from the radioactive wastewater, or handled the concentrated materials regularly for 20 years. But without these types of intensive or confined exposures, the materials may be less dangerous, making it difficult to discern effects on workers’ health, experts say.

People absorb radioactivity in their daily routines, complicating health assessments. Eighty percent of human radioactivity exposure comes from natural sources, according to the EPA. Everything from granite countertops to a pile of playground dirt can emit radioactivity that is higher than the EPA, which regulates based on a theory that zero exposure is best, may prefer.

“You start with the world where you and I are getting an exposure from the sun, from the soil we walk on, from the brick in our house that on average is about 400 millirems a year-which is dangerous,” said Tom Lenhart, a former member of the federal-state Interagency Steering Committee on Radiation Standards. “The EPA would never allow that kind of exposure. So you are starting from a baseline of dangerous exposure, and this is what makes regulating it a nightmare.”

The EPA estimates that Americans are exposed to about 300 to 360 millirems per year, including routine artificial exposures like getting an x-ray or flying in an airplane. Each multiple of this “background level” denotes a proportional increase in the chance of getting cancer.
The natural radioactivity of the Marcellus Shale has caused concern since the mid-1980s, when high levels of radon gas were found in the basements of homes in Marcellus, a town in upstate New York, where the shale reaches the surface. The question has long been, if the Marcellus can cause radioactive gas to seep into people’s basements, how much radioactivity might be infused into the water left over from drilling? Add to that the question of how much human exposure can be expected from the radiation detected at some Marcellus drilling sites.

In its environmental review, the state said it couldn’t answer those questions because exposure depends on so many variables and because the units of measurement for human exposure and concentrations in water are incompatible. There is “no simple or universally accepted equivalence between these units,” the DEC wrote in its environmental review.

But Rick Kessy, operations manager for Fortuna Energy, a subsidiary of Canadian Talisman Energy and the largest gas producer in New York, says his company has assessed worker exposure at two of the company’s well sites in Pennsylvania, where it found no serious risk.

And a U.S. Department of Energy expert who specializes in such exposure conversions said an analysis in New York should be “very easy to do.”

“If they know the concentrations and they know the exposure pathways it should be straightforward to calculate that,” said Charley Yu, who runs the national computer dose modeling program at http://www.talisman-energy.com/ for the U.S. Department of Energy.

In fact, New York’s DEC used Yu’s government modeling program, called RESRAD, in a 1999 study to establish radioactivity exposure risks for oilfield brine spread on roads, a common disposal practice. Its brine samples in that case contained far less radium than the Marcellus water. It laid out a simple scenario, assuming a person walked on the road for two hours a day over 20 years and a fixed quantity of brine was spread there. That study found no threat to human health.

No such analysis was included in the state’s recent supplemental environmental impact statement.

Few Disposal Options

All this would be of substantially less concern if New York were like most of the other states that produce some radioactive waste during natural gas drilling. In those states, the waste is re-injected underground. But in New York, injection disposal wells are uncommon, and those that do exist aren’t licensed to receive radioactive waste or Marcellus Shale wastewater, according to the EPA. Instead, most drilling wastewater is treated by municipal or industrial water treatment plants and discharged back into public waterways.

The radium-laden wastewater would almost certainly need to be carefully treated by plants capable of filtering out the radioactive substances. Kessy, the Fortuna manager, which operates five of the wells with spiked readings in New York, said the levels are higher than he has seen elsewhere. Treatment plants in Pennsylvania are accepting Fortuna wastewater with much lower levels of radioactivity from the company’s wells there, Kessy said, but if plants can’t take the higher concentrations, it could be crippling.
“In the event that they were not able to comply due to high radioactivity, they would reject the water,” Kessy said. “And if we did not have a viable option for it, our operations would just shut down. There is no other option.”

It is not clear which treatment plants, if any in New York, are capable of handling such material.
DEC spokesman Yancey Roy said that “there are currently no facilities specifically designated for treating them.” He added that the state depends on the drilling companies to make sure there is a legal treatment option for the water, and then reviews those plans.

“The department has not received any permit submissions from the well operators that include details about treatment options for the brine containing NORM,” he said. “So we do not know what treatment options are being considered or how effective NORM removal will be.”

ProPublica contacted several plant managers in central New York who said they could not take the waste or were not familiar with state regulations.

“We are not set up to take radioactive substances,” said Patricia Pastella, commissioner of the Onondaga County Department of Water Environment Protection, which operates the Metropolitan plant in Syracuse, N.Y. “It does present a problem with disposal.”

Filtering the water is just one of several problems. Plants that can filter out the radioactive materials are left with a concentrated sludge that has substantially higher radioactivity than the wastewater. Sludge can also collect inside the pipes at well sites, in waste pits and in holding tanks.

Federal laws don’t directly address naturally occurring radioactivity, and the oil and gas industry is exempt from federal laws dictating handling of toxic waste, leaving the burden on New York State. New York has laws governing radioactive materials, but the state’s drilling plans don’t specify when they would apply.

Experts who reviewed the concentrations of radioactive metals found in New York’s wastewater said the leftover sludge is likely to exceed the legal limits for hazardous waste and would need to be shipped to Idaho or Washington State, to some of the only landfills in the country permitted to accept it.
Fortuna’s Kessy said that’s an acceptable cost of doing business. “We’ll be willing, of course, to fund the necessary disposal means,” he said.

The same may be required of some of the equipment used in drilling, which can eventually emit much higher levels of radiation than the water itself. Louisiana, for example, began regulating radioactive materials after it found radioactive buildup in pipes dumped in scrap yards and in the steel used to build schoolyard bleachers.

But the levels in that state were just one eighth of those measured so far in New York.
“I don’t believe anyone has taken a look, seriously, at what the unintended consequences are to dealing with these kinds of materials,” said Theodore Adams, the radioactive waste disposal consultant. “It’s a unique animal-a unique disposal-and depending on where it is located and who is receiving it, it could have an impact.”

 ProPublica’s Sabrina Shankman contributed reporting to this article.    Abrahm Lustgarten is an investigative reporter for ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit  newsroom that produces journalism in the public interest.  Thanks to Richard Charter who provided this article.

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100113/BREAKINGNEWS/100113022/

Eglin Air Force Base commander says drilling off Florida’s coast could affect operations
BY JIM ASH * FLORIDA TODAY CAPITAL BUREAU * JANUARY 13, 2010
       
TALLAHASSEE — In an unusually candid acknowledgement, the commander of Eglin Air Force Base told lawmakers Wednesday that oil and gas drilling in Florida waters could pose a threat to military operations.

Col. Bruce McClintock, who commands 5,400 men and women and a base that generates $1.54 billion in economic activity, told the House Military Affairs and Local Policy Committee that pipelines associated with drilling could interfere with flight testing.

When Eglin tests missiles by firing them at drone aircraft over the Gulf of Mexico, the drones and the spent missiles “have to fall somewhere,” McClintock said. The problem arises when the industry installs above-water pumping stations for the pipelines, McClintock said.  The pumping stations attract sport fishing and put boaters at risk, he said.  “Is there a potential for offshore operations to affect military operations? The answer is yes,” he said.

Republican House leaders last spring launched a late-session proposal to lift a two-decade ban on oil and gas drilling in state waters. The issue is scheduled to be discussed again Thursday by the House Select Policy Council on Strategic & Economic Planning.

The military has largely been silent on the issue. McClintock said base commanders have been ordered to refer most questions to the Secretary of the Air Force. His statements came in response to a committee member’s questions.

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said McClintock’s remarks are still not enough to convince him to oppose offshore drilling. However, he said he will vote against offshore drilling when he is convinced it threatens the bases in his Panhandle district. “Our military officials are being more and more forthright,” Gaetz said.

Tallahassee lobbyist Frank Matthews, a chief drilling supporter, said military operations can be protected by exclusion zones.    “The entire coast is not a military training area,” he said.

The more lawmakers learn about the potential threats of offshore drilling, the less likely they are to approve it, said Audubon of Florida lobbyist Eric Draper.  “All of the claims that the industry made, about energy independence, that it’s safe, just aren’t turning out to be true,” he said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter , as ever, for alerting us to this.

http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/CSM-Galleries/Destructive-Oil-Spills/(photo)/2

Christian Science Monitor:  January 4, 2010 

Fourteen compelling images of oil spills around the world.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Gulf of Mexico Offshore Oil Drilling

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Naples News
Michael Peltier: Drilling, gaming debate heats up chilly Capitol
TALLAHASSEE – Following a bitterly cold weekend – by Florida standards, that is – things will heat up considerably this week as lawmakers return to Tallahassee for the first of two committee weeks in January.

As lawmakers begin the 2010 push leading up to the Legislative session in March, committees this week will take separate looks at Seminole Indian gambling and the future of offshore oil drilling off Florida’s Gulf coast.

The two controversial issues are mixed in among scores of items – some important, some not-so-much – working their way through committees to prepare for possible passage later this spring.

The House Select Policy Council on Strategic & Economic Planning is scheduled to meet Thursday for a workshop on energy exploration, oil drilling technology and regulatory requirements for drilling as it related to offshore waters in the Gulf.

The Senate has thrown some cold water on the oil drilling issue. Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, has made it clear he’s not in any hurry to determine if it’s a good idea to lift a decades’ long moratorium on exploration and extraction of oil in the eastern Gulf.

Instead, Atwater (who is running for the statewide office of Chief Financial Officer in November) has asked for a “thorough review” by the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida. The panel, however, said last week it won’t have its report completed until early March, which in only the rarest of cases is too late for lawmakers to address in a mere 60-day session that ends the first week in May.

Signs of such a timetable are evident. Florida Energy Associates, a coalition formed to promote drilling efforts, last week said it was reducing its lobbying ranks for the current session. The time, apparently, may not be ripe to justify the cost of a Dream Team lobby corps.

The House panel reviewing the Seminole gambling compact with the state is also not expected to come to closure anytime soon but will forge ahead this week. Led by Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, the House Select Committee on Seminole Indian Compact Review meets Thursday to consider a proposed council bill dealing with Seminole Indian Compact ratification and another addressing non-Indian pari-mutuel permit holders.

The gambling deal has already stalled on a few occasions as lawmakers, the Seminole Tribe, the governor’s office and non-Indian pari-mutuel owners come to the table with dramatically different desires. Such differences have proven difficult to overcome as negotiators try to forge an agreement acceptable to all.

House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, recently asked federal regulators to shut down banked card games at Seminole casinos including Immokalee after early revenue sharing agreements fell through. The tribe wants to expand to facilities statewide while House leaders favor a far more conservative expansion.

For his part, Gov. Charlie Crist just wants some kind of agreement that locks in revenue for the state.

- – -
E-mail Michael Peltier at mpeltier1234@comcast.net.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Opinion: DIRTY BUSINESS

Fran Gibson
January 10, 2010 6:54 AM
This is re: the recent column by Ron Meyer Jr. on the effect of offshore oil drilling on natural oil seeps. The author’s premise is that offshore drilling alleviates the pressure of natural oil seeps in the Santa Barbara coast region. We disagree.

The column says the amount of natural seepage is from 150 to 250 barrels per day off Coal Oil Point (over 5,000 barrels per year or 210,000 gallons) to 86,000 barrels per year in the Santa Barbara area; 86,000 barrels equates to 3.6 million gallons.

The 1969 Santa Barbara blowout was 200,000 gallons (what he contends is seeping daily from Coal Oil Point annualized) and the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska was 10.8 million gallons. That means every three years, the natural seepage would be equal to an Exxon Valdez spill. If that were the case, the ocean all along our coast, not just Santa Barbara, would be one big gooey oil mess, our beaches would be black and unusable, and there would not be any living thing off our shores.

Could it be that the numbers are just more statistics the oil industry fabricates?

No one really knows how much oil is seeping naturally. The Interior Department’s MMS division is presently conducting a five-year study to look at offshore Southern California within the area between Point Arguello and Ventura to document the locations, determine a geochemical footprint to distinguish natural tar residues and to “measure the rate of natural seepage of individual seeps and attempt to access the regional natural oil and gas seepage rates.” We do not currently have this scientific information confirmed conclusively.

Mr. Meyer’s column claims that drilling will relieve the pressure and reduce the natural seeps. Another fabrication by the oil industry. There is not, to our knowledge, any scientific study to support this contention. The one study done on this was in 1999 and published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. One of the lead authors of the study, Bruce Luyendyk, said the group SOS (which is perpetrating the myth that drilling reduces natural oil seeps) is “extrapolating these results in ways that are not justified.”

Mr. Meyer’s column also says the single biggest source of air pollution is the natural seeps. But no one knows how much pollution actually seeps.

Each offshore oil platform — there are 24 — generates some 214,000 pounds of air pollutants each year (National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration). An average exploration well for oil or natural gas generates some 50 tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx), 13 tons of carbon monoxide, 6 tons of sulfur dioxide and 5 tons of volatile organic hydrocarbons. These pollutants are the precursors to smog, acid rain, and contribute to global warming.

Our guess is the single biggest producer of air pollution in this area are the ships that ply the Santa Barbara Channel, with cars or the oil platforms coming in second and third.

Offshore oil drilling will not reduce pollution; it will contribute to it.

Let’s face it: Drilling for oil is a dirty business from start to finish — from the sounds produced by seismic surveys to locate oil that deafens and kills fish and marine mammals, to the tons of waste discarded into the water from drilling operations.

Debris from offshore operations includes drill cuttings and drilling mud brought up during the drilling process. This mud contains toxic metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury. Other pollutants produced from a rig’s daily operations include benzene, arsenic and other known carcinogens.

 The author is president of the board of Coastwalk California.

EDITORIAL:

Facts sink new drilling technology

Saturday, December 26, 2009 1:51 AM (Source: Tampa Tribune) By Tampa Tribune, Fla.

Dec. 26–It is becoming increasingly evident that the shadowy group promoting oil drilling immediately off Florida’s shores is playing fast and loose with the facts.

Florida Energy Associates, an independent group of oil producers that won’t identify its members, claims in its literature, “New technology allows for safe, sub-sea energy exploration without creating a visual blight. No visible, permanent structures need be seen from the shoreline.”

Rep. Dean Cannon, the Winter Park Republican who is the Legislature’s leading champion of drilling, continually claims there will be no unsightly rigs.

Not so.

As the Sarasota Herald-Tribune found, the new technology is a deep-sea system that operates in thousands of feet of water. The American Petroleum Institute told a Herald-Tribune reporter the system is intended for water more than 5,000 feet deep. In contrast, the oil group wants to drill between three and 10 miles off Florida’s beaches, where the water is no deeper than 100 feet.

Moreover, a subsea system would be possible in Florida waters only if a traditional drilling platform were nearby and could pipe oil to an onshore refinery, which would require the industrialization of Florida’s coast. This would diminish the state’s appeal to tourists and residents alike.

As an oil official told the Herald-Tribune, “There is no such thing as an invisible rig.” Florida Energy Associates officials, of course, brush off such details, claiming the technology they promise could be developed if only Florida would give drilling the go ahead.

In other words, trust us. Florida lawmakers would be foolish if they do.

Consider other claims.

The drilling proponents said as much as 3 billion barrels of oil lie beneath Florida’s waters. But the 3-billion-barrel figure is based on a U.S. Geological Survey report that included not just Florida’s waters but much of the Gulf of Mexico and land deposits under most of the South.

Another assertion is that Florida would realize $2.25 billion a year in royalties. But that is based on the assumption Florida waters would produce 150 million barrels of oil a year — more than Alaska, Texas, Louisiana and California combined produced in their peak year. And remember, almost all the exploratory wells that were drilled before Florida’s coastline was protected came up dry.

Of course, the oil crowd’s mantra is that the rigs pose no risk to the environment. But just last August, a blowout occurred on a new “jack-up” rig like what is proposed for Florida, and it spilled 300 to 400 barrels of oil a day for weeks in the Timor Sea off Australia.

Such an accident would ruin our white sandy beaches, considered among the best in the nation, and demolish Florida’s $65 billion-a-year tourism industry. And small oil spills remain routine in Gulf of Mexico operations.

It is encouraging that Florida Senate President Jeff Atwater, unlike Cannon, is in no hurry to do the bidding of a group of secretive oil interests.

Atwater wants to determine the truth about drilling. He, like the people of Florida, will find that can’t be done by relying on proponents’ oily sales pitch.

—–

To see more of the Tampa Tribune or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.tampatrib.com

Copyright (c) 2009, Tampa Tribune, Fla.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Tampa Bay Newspapers: Join the fight against oil drilling

Dec. 30. 2009

Florida’s coast-related revenues generate 85 percent of our state’s total tourist related revenues. The $7 billion tourists spend each year in Florida is the engine that drives our economy.

Nearly 1 million Floridians are employed by the state’s tourism industry. Just a 1 percent decrease in Florida’s tourism results in a $39 million loss for we, the Florida tax-paying residents.

The 1993 tanker devastation off Florida’s coast alone cost Pinellas County a 45 percent decrease in state revenue for the following two years. It was income that each and every Florida resident made up for with increased taxes and fees during that time.

Visitors don’t come to Florida to tour our museums. They don’t come to Florida to visit our cathedrals, skyscrapers, historical monuments. And they certainly don’t come to Florida to visit our ski slopes.

According to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources, 85 percent of Florida’s visitors come to the state just to visit our beaches. They come to play in the gulf, which is Florida’s primary industry. How do we put a price on it?

To jeopardize this with visible and contaminating oil rigs just 50 miles off our coast is completely unacceptable, especially since the oil cartels already have hundreds of viable leases 300 miles out in the gulf, which they choose not to use.

Having this omni-present oil catastrophe at bay is no less different than risking the oil contamination of precious cathedrals, historical monuments, national parks and ski slopes throughout the rest of our country. Remember this. As goes Florida’s beaches, so goes Florida’s economy.

If you agree, write or e-mail Gov. Charlie Crist, State Sen. Dennis Jones, R-Treasure Island; State Rep. Jim Frishe, R-Belleair Bluffs; or Florida Senate president Jeff Atwater with your thoughts on this issue.

Phil Collins

Vice Mayor Treasure Island

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

NEAR-SHORE OIL DRILLING

Near-Shore Oil Drilling: Deep-Sea Tech Wrong for Florida

Published: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 12:01 a.m.

Floridians and their legislators have had many reasons to be skeptical since proposals surfaced rapidly to open near-shore waters to exploration and drilling for oil.

With little notice and even less scrutiny, the Florida House of Representatives quickly passed a bill last spring to lift a well-established ban on exploration and drilling within three miles of the coastline.

There was no good explanation for the rush, and the bill sailed through the House despite the lack of a cost-benefit analysis or basic review of the proponents’ claims.

Fortunately, Senate President Jeff Atwater refused the join the rush, demanding a “dispassionate review” of drilling methods, environmental impacts and the dubious claims that oil extraction would be a boon to Florida’s economy and promote “energy independence.”

As a result, the House bill died.

Unfortunately, the efforts to promote drilling in state waters – as well as in federal waters farther from shore – are alive. The proposals might not get far soon, however, because of growing skepticism on the part of some legislators.

For example, a sizeable contingent of legislators recently said they were led by lobbyists to believe that new technologies would make drilling safe and “virtually invisible.”

Indeed, interest groups such as Florida Energy Associates presented legislators, the public and the media with simple, slick brochures picturing virtually invisible alternatives to conventional drilling rigs.

INDUSTRY LINE MISLEADS

A leading proponent of the legislation – Rep. Dean Cannon, the incoming speaker of the House in 2011 – followed the industry line.

“Today, temporary ship-based rigs can drill wells far out of sight from shore, using directional drilling and subsea equipment to avoid surface visibility and to protect coastal vistas,” Cannon wrote in an op-ed column in May.

Lawmakers now, however, have reason to question their reliance on the oil industry’s representations.

Directional drilling and subsea equipment haven’t been used extensively, if at all, in shallow waters such as those near Florida’s west coast, according to experts cited in a recent news articles by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

These methods are either expensive – and possibly cost-prohibitive – or they require pipelines and other infrastructure lacking near the coast.

As Dave Mica of the Florida Petroleum Council said: “Shallow-water drilling is generally done with temporary jack-up drilling rigs. Once the drilling is complete, the drilling rigs are removed and replaced with a production system. Fixed production platforms are typically installed after most of the drilling is completed.”

It’s doubtful that coastal residents will find any appeal in the prospect of temporary jack-up rigs and fixed production platforms within three miles to five miles of shore.

Reject near-shore drilling

http://www.wmnf.org/news_stories/new-report-says-oil-drilling-will-harm-florida-coasts

December 2, 2009
The 3 to 10 miles the Florida Legislature controls off the state’s coastline has caught the attention of oil lobbyists who want to remove the drilling ban. Environment Florida and the Sierra Club today held a news conference discussing their new report regarding this debate, Oceans under the Gun.

Gulf of Mexico Offshore Oil Drilling

Potential Impact of Oil Spills and Oil Exploration

and Development on the Florida Keys

November, 2009

by DeeVon Quirolo

The Florida Keys experienced two major freighter groundings in the early 1990’s, which catalyzed public opinion and drove efforts to create a sanctuary banning oil drilling and exploration activities in the Florida Keys. It also led to creation of an Area to be Avoided by the International Maritime Organization that has moved large vessel traffic further offshore of the area’s coral barrier reef. 

Fortunately, neither ship grounding resulted in a major oil spill. However, the cumulative effects of numerous small spills from boats in local waters and run-off from automobiles that travel the Overseas Highway of the Keys degrade water quality on a daily basis. A major spill is a possibility should an errant tanker run aground on our the reef.  And oil pollution from offshore production either in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico or even possibly along the northern coast of Cuba could impact the Keys and further compromise Florida’s endangered coral reef ecosystem.

Within the context of the United State’s energy needs, fossil fuels provide a major source of energy from both domestic and foreign sources, while contributing significantly to global climate change, air and water pollution, rising energy costs and international political instability. Alternative transportation fuels, in conjunction with an array of other energy-related strategies, have the potential to help reduce these impacts and deliver the greatest benefit for the environment and the American people.  Converting to a sustainable lifestyle for all Americans is the real challenge that will protect the Florida Keys into the future. 

Sources of Oil Pollution

It is estimated that ninety to ninety-five percent of the oil pollution that enters the water comes from land-based sources, with oil spills accounting for the remaining five to ten percent.  Surprisingly, one of the worst offending sources is the oil that drips innocently from your car onto the street that then trickles into drains that eventually find their way to the sea. 

The oil industry is improving but has been a source of chronic pollution for many years. According to a United Nations report, a total of seven million gallons a year is spilled in the Caribbean; half of it from tankers and ships and the other half from offshore oil operations.  Since the year 2000, there have been eleven major oil spills worldwide. (1)  At this writing in 2009, a major oil spill is occurring off the coast of Australia.  Efforts are underway to plug a leak from the oil rig, which has been spilling oil into the Timor Sea for about seven weeks.

Shipping the oil to world markets is big business.  Tanker traffic to the Gulf of Mexico is increasing and eighty percent of the vessels are foreign-flagged, and not subject to U.S. vessel registration, inspections and regulations, according to the National Resources Defense Council.  Many of these vessels pass by the Florida Keys on their way through the Yucatan Straits between Mexico and Cuba. 

According to a 1994 U.S. Coast Guard study, tank barges are the leading source of pollution events involving spills. Double-hull tankers are said to be safer than a single-hull in a grounding incident. The safety benefits are less clear on larger vessels and in cases of high speed impact.  In 2005, the average age of oil tankers in the world fleet was 10 years. Most newer tankers are double-hulled, with an extra space between the hull and storage tanks. All single-hulled tankers around the world will be phased out by 2026, in accordance with the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL). The United Nations has set a date of 2010 while the U.S. deadline is 2015.   U.S tankers are ahead of schedule. American Waterways reports that 80% of all inland and coastal tankers in the U.S. are now double hulled, and that spills have been reduced significantly since 1994 to an annual average of 150,944 gallons. (2)

Over the past 40 years, oil companies have drilled about 10,000 wells across the Gulf of Mexico.  Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have overlooked the pollution, trash, and tar balls that washed ashore in exchange for cash and jobs.  Coastal areas have been sacrificed to provide infrastructure.  Oil refineries are located Caribbean-wide with three in Cuba producing 300,500 barrels of oil per day and 16 in Louisiana producing almost 3 million barrels per day.

Hurricanes wreak great damage on oil facilities.  The U.S. Coast Guard reports that: “The warm water of the Loop Current fueled Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as they tore through the offshore oil rigs, pipelines and refineries in the central and western gulf. More than 7 million gallons of petroleum products spilled.  The largest of the spills poured about 76,000 gallons of condensate, a toxic form of liquefied gas, into Gulf waters. Smaller spills are common.  Between 1973—2001, there were more than 239,000 oil spills reported.  The hurricanes damaged 457 pipelines, destroyed 113 drilling platforms and forced others to shut down. The U.S. Interior Minerals Management Services (MMS) report, based largely on self-reporting by energy companies, says Hurricane Rita caused 54 spills while Katrina caused 70 spills. Together they caused six spills of more than 1,000 barrels – the equivalent of more than 42,000 gallons from each – and 40 spills of more than 50 barrels.   An MMS spokesman acknowledged that the agency relies on energy companies to report spills. They reported no spills that “reached the shoreline, oiled birds or mammals or involved large volumes of oil to be collected or cleaned up.” In addition to polluting the Gulf, hurricane damage contributed to a spike in fuel prices. The disruption in production reduced oil supplies, one reason gasoline shot up to more than $3 per gallon.  

Drilling promoters say that new technology makes offshore operations safe and clean, even in hurricane alley. Nevertheless, environmentalists contend that last year’s spills added pollution to the Gulf that is depleting fish populations and causing untold harm to other wildlife. “Out in the Gulf, there’s no monitoring that will tell what the long-term damage may have been,” said Richard Charter, Government Relations Consultant with Defenders of Wildlife.  Richard has been a leader of the OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) Coalition of grassroots organizations opposing offshore oil drilling and exploration in fragile marine areas.  For many years, Reef Relief and other conservation interests have depended upon Richard for updates on this issue.       

Impact of Oil Drilling

There’s no doubt about it.  America’s dependence on oil for transportation causes massive environmental impacts. The U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels of oil a day. Emissions from transportation accounted for 28 percent of global warming emissions in the United States in 2005. Gasoline and diesel were responsible for 78 percent of transportation-sector emissions.

Global warming is a growing threat to the environment and our way of life. Within a century, the average world temperature could increase by another 2 to 11.5°F. Sea level could rise by 7 to 23 inches, and snow and ice cover will continue to contract.  Increased sea temperatures are causing devastating coral bleaching and increased occurrence of coral diseases at the reef.  Our heavy reliance on petroleum-based fuels has also created widespread air and water pollution via mercury into the food chain and toxic gases in the atmosphere. Alternative transportation fuels can reduce our dependence on petroleum, but vary greatly in their impact on the environment (3)

The Florida Keys is home to North America’s only living coral barrier reef, the third longest in the world. This fragile, interdependent ecosystem consists of coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrasses that, together with the upland hardwood hammocks, are home to one-third of Florida’s threatened and endangered species.  It is also the backbone of our commercial fishing industry and tourism economy, providing unlimited pleasures from diving, boating, kayaking, photography and sportfishing. Florida’s coastal economy, according to the Florida Ocean and Coastal Council 2008 Florida’s Ocean & Coastal Economies Report, generated $562 billion in 2006 and Florida’s ocean economy generated $25 billion in 2005. (4)

A major oil spill on the oceanside of the Florida Keys could be carried by currents and tides onto our beaches, mangroves, coral reefs, and shallow seagrasses.  A spill in the Gulf of Mexico could result in similar impacts since the Gulf Loop Current carries offshore waters into the Lower Florida Keys where the shrimp and lobster breed.  From Florida Bay there is a net transport of water through and around the passages of the Keys, to the oceanside barrier reef where the Gulfstream would carry any pollutants north.

Such a spill would endanger the coral reef ecosystem and the myriad of life it harbors including endangered species such as conchs, turtles, manatees, dolphins, roseate spoonbills, plus the direct loss of hard and soft corals, mangroves, and seagrasses.  Birds, crabs and other intertidal invertebrates would be heavily impacted.  The nursery capacity of mangroves and seagrasses would be diminished along with the beneficial effects of mangroves in filtering pollutants from the land and stabilizing the shoreline. Seagrass losses would increase sedimentation in the water.

A major oil spill would also dramatically affect tourism and commercial fishing.  A blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979 inundated Texas beaches for 300 days, with resultant losses of $7.6 million.  Commercial fishing for lobster, stone crab, shrimp, and reef fish could be impacted.  The Valdez spill, for example, closed the salmon and herring fisheries completely.  Sport and commercial species of fish in the Keys depend upon pollution-free nursery grounds and a healthy coral reef to thrive.

Oil and Water Don’t Mix

Perhaps the best study of oil on coral reefs occurred in 1986, when more than eight million litres of crude oil spilled onto a coral reef ecosystem in Panama, the largest recorded spill in the tropical Americas.  Many of the plants and animals had been studied before the spill by researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Station located at the site of the spill.  Conclusions indicated wide-ranging impacts:

Plants and animals died wherever they came in contact with oil.  Oil accumulated along the seaward edge of the Galeta reef flat, directly coating and killing plants and animals, including coral.  At high tide, oil accumulated along sand beaches, where it soaked into the sand and settled onto the shoreward reef flat at low tide, killing seagrasses, algae and invertebrates.  Oil covered intertidal surfaces of prop roots of the red mangrove, killing oysters and other life on the roots.  Relieved of the weight of their leaves, the branches flexed upward, lifting the roots out of the water and thus killing subtidal life that previously escaped direct contact with floating oil.  Dead mangrove trees formed a band about 8 to 10 meters wide marking the area where oil accumulated as it entered the mangrove forests.  A band of defoliated trees was apparent within 2 months after the spill and widened thereafter.

Immediately after the spill, a bloom of microalgae covered recently killed areas.  Populations of animals were severely reduced and only one species had returned to typical abundance after 18 months.  Sea urchin densities on the reef flat seaward edge were reduced by about 80% within a few days of oiling.  Abundance of the most common corals in depths of less than three meters decreased by 51% to 96% at one reef, by 76% overall and by 54% in depths between 9 to 12 meters. (5).

In a 1993 follow-up study the authors noted, “This summary is intended to alert the environmental community that toxic effects of hydrocarbons will probably persist for at least 20 years in deep mud tropical coastal habitats affected by catastrophic spills.”  Two years after the spill, these researchers found the “Numbers of coral, total coral cover, and species diversity based on cover decreased significantly with increased amounts of oiling.” Another study in Panama additionally concluded there is “…Little prospect for rapid reef recovery.” 

Oil is a poisonous substance; one drop of crude oil can kill the unborn bird inside its egg or poison adult birds that drink contaminated water.  An oiled bird loses its ability to fly, retain heat, hunt or feed.  Sub-lethal effects result in ulceration, pneumonia and other diseases, retarded growth of young, and improper organ function.  Sea turtles have difficulty distinguishing tarballs from food, with deadly results. Fish and marine life depend upon healthy habitat, nutritional feeding, fleeing predators and sexual attraction, all of which is interrupted by the effects of oil. Invertebrates suffer dramatic losses. Simple life forms that ingest oil spread it up the food chain.  Ducks that consumed crayfish subjected to No. 2 fuel oil exhibited oil accumulations in the liver, gall bladder, fat, kidneys and blood.  Oil in the water column that doesn’t dissipate affects animals at different stages from the larvae on up.  Oil can wipe out whole fish populations. Oil causes trophic cascading impacts, a term used to describe how just one susceptible species can affect each part of its food web and habitat with a multiplier effect lasting many years.  Oil trapped in mangrove and seagrass areas can persist and remain toxic for years, taking an estimated 50 years to repopulate to pre-spill levels. According to Richard Charter, “Heavier crude oil has a component that sinks and forms tarballs. They are out of sight, sink to the bottom and are buried in the sea floor. The toxicity can persist for 50 to 100 years. Condensate tends to float on the surface and tends to evaporate and turn to a vapor. But it’s toxic and can kill on contact.”

Contingency Planning

The Exxon Valdez spill and several vessel groundings created U.S. political will to mandate procedures for eliminating accidental spillage and marine debris from offshore rigs and require double hulled tankers. The U.S. Coast Guard has implemented extensive oil spill recovery plans and enlisted local governments to provide facilities to respond to a major event. 

Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which holds a responsible party liable for damages caused by an oil spill, including penalties of up to $25,000 per day.  It stepped up the requirements for safe entry and transfer of oil and required Vessel Response Plans (VRP) in tankers including designation of services to provide 24-hour computerized data and services relating to damage stability, damage stress analysis, grounding force monitoring, oil outflow estimates, lightering quantities and sequences.  Final rules for the VRPs went into effect in 1996 and are administered by the U.S. Coast Guard.  In addition, Congress created the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, a $1 billion fund to support the cost of cleanup and damages from oil spills.

State and county governments in California and Washington are requiring additional ground tackle sufficient to secure vessels during a storm, emergency response beacons, fire suppression systems, and escort tugs to further protect coastlines from oil spills. Key West has an oil spill contingency plan and capacity to implement it.

The International Maritime Organization has strengthened the rules under MARPOL to require SOPEPs (Shipboard Oil Pollution Emergency Response Plans) for tankers of 150 gross tons and above and any other ship of 400 gross tons or more as well as safer management policies through the International Safety Management Code.  All this should reduce catastrophic oil spills.

Changing Times Results in New Policies

Offshore oil production continues at full throttle.  Beginning in 1954, the federal government offered wide areas of America’s coast to offshore oil exploration and development in the form of leases to oil companies in exchange for upfront fees and a share of sales, or royalties.   This policy generated massive opposition from environmentalists.  As a result, certain key habitats were protected by annual Congressional drilling bans passed in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991 that prevented the Interior Department from leasing sensitive offshore tracts.

In Florida, the area south of 26 degrees North Latitude, approximately 100 miles south of the Florida Panhandle, and all waters outside of Lease Sale 181 in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, have been under a Congressional and Presidential moratorium for offshore oil and gas exploration and development, thanks to strong citizen opposition. Keys citizens united in the 1990′s to oppose big oil based on the impact it would have on our coral reefs and tourism. Black Friday was a day when all businesses closed and everyone joined a parade and then spoke out at a public hearing that lasted for over 6 hours. 

Legislation signed by President George H. W. Bush in 1990 created the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, banning any and all offshore oil activities within sanctuary boundaries that includes 2600 square nautical miles–the entire Florida Keys from North Key Largo to the Dry Tortugas and the entire bayside of the Keys.  The legislation also created an International Area to be Avoided, sanctioned by the International Maritime Organization, that restricts large commercial vessel traffic from sanctuary boundaries and results in moving ship traffic further off the barrier reef. A Presidential Task Force reviewed the 1992-1997 Five Year Plan for Offshore Oil Exploration and Development and recommended a ten-year drilling ban for the 73 leases held by nine oil companies for areas adjacent to the Florida Keys.  Unfortunately, the trade-off allowed development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

President Clinton targeted areas for offshore leasing on the basis of consensus building, science-based decision making, and use of natural gas as an environmentally preferable fuel and continued the moratorium for the Keys.

Things looked bleak for oil and gas companies in 1995, especially for those along the Gulf Coast.  Energy prices were so low that investment had dried up. Scores of wildcatters and small exploration companies had gone out of business. Few companies had any stomach for drilling in water thousands of feet deep, and industry leaders were focused on opportunities abroad.  U.S. Senator Johnston of Louisiana, convinced that the Gulf’s vast reservoirs and Louisiana’s oil-based economy were being neglected, argued that Congress should offer incentives for deep-water drilling and exploration.  Working closely with industry executives, he wrote legislation to allow a company drilling in deep water to escape the standard 12 percent royalty on up to 87.5 million barrels of oil or its equivalent in natural gas. As a result, during the George W. Bush administration, the federal Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 1997-2002 offered 384 blocks in deep water 100 or more miles off the costs of Alabama and Florida for lease.  “This is intended to recognize the natural gas and oil industry’s desire to expand the area of leasing consideration in a way that is acceptable to other constituents,” noted Cynthia Quarterman, MMS Director.  The program generates four billion dollars a year from federal offshore leases and federal and Indian onshore mineral leases.  It recognized that the State of Florida was opposed to such activity within 100 miles of our coast, but allowed the first oil rigs in Florida to be built off the Panhandle, a decision that has deeply embittered that local community.

In January, 2006, without public review or comment, Lease Sale 181 in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico was removed from Florida’s jurisdiction and given to Louisiana via a revised “Seaward Boundary Lines Extension in the Federal Register.”  The following year, a drilling bill, which the Republican-led Congress passed in its final hours, opened 8.3 million acres of federal waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and natural gas rigs, including Lease Sale 181.  For the first time, it provided the states a significant share of federal royalty revenues–37.5 percent– to be divided up based on each state’s proximity to production. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee projected that the states would share some $1.2 billion per year by 2022 and a total of $170 billion over 60 years. Louisiana could eventually get more than $600 million a year.  (6)  

President George W. Bush also revoked previous protections for Bristol Bay, Alaska, while not mentioning the Keys, which was still under his Presidential moratoria. However, once he signed the Congressional bill into law, it had the effect of revoking the ban. Nine coastal governors opposed the legislation but then-Florida Governor Jeb Bush helped write the house bill.  As a result, there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of oil and gas deep water activity in the Gulf of Mexico and use of new technological developments and discoveries in these new geological provinces.  Advocates to drilling note the area holds an estimated 6-trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That’s enough to heat up to 6-million homes a year for 15 years. But that’s a tiny fraction of what America uses each year, which totals more than 22.4-trillion cubic feet. The estimated amount of oil in the area, 930-million barrels, is even smaller.

Drilling opponents say that it’s not worth the environmental risk and that industry instead should be pushing for more conservation and alternative fuels.  Some interpreted this as a win because states such as Florida could keep drilling 125 miles offshore via a dangerous petitioning process to the Interior Department.  It also provides a buffer zone for the military mission line that the military says is important to training needs. 

Oil interests even ventured into state politics in Florida, resulting in introduction and passage of House Bill 1219 in 2009, which would have allowed the governor and the three-member Cabinet to consider and award drilling leases in state waters as close as 3 miles from shore. The oil industry spent millions to build public support including that of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its local Florida affiliates. Despite the opposition of editorial boards across the state, the bill passed and leases could be awarded up to 10½ miles from the beaches.  To date, the Florida Senate has not taken it up and Senate President Jeff Atwater said it was unlikely this Senate would consider it, citing the complexity and importance of the issue. A poll commissioned by the Times-Union and South Florida Sun Sentinel last year suggested 53 percent of respondents favored drilling, but most wanted it at least 125 miles from the coastline, a stunning reversal of the unanimous opposition to oil held by all Floridians in recent years. (7)  

On January 16, 2009, after the induction of President Barack Obama, MMS announced the release of the Draft Proposed Five Year Program for Oil Drilling 2010-2015 and sought public comment on all aspects of the new program including energy development and economic and environmental issues in the Outer Continental Shelf areas. The following month, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar extended the comment period by 180 days, tasked the MMS and U.S. Geologic Survey to produce a report on resources and potential impacts, and scheduled 4 regional meetings to be held in April, 2009, to receive additional public input. Citing harmful effects on marine life and oil spills in the Arctic, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are asking the Interior Department to “drastically reduce plans to open the coast to offshore oil and gas drilling.”  A final decision has yet to be announced regarding the future of the program.  A more informed approach is being applied.  The concept of marine spatial planning—identifying the best use of offshore resources and setting up zones appropriate to those activities—is being considered.  A series of public hearings have been held by the President’s Ocean Council to identify the potential for such an approach.   This has the potential of protecting the Florida Keys and adjacent areas from oil development.   

How Will Drilling in the Eastern Gulf Affect the Florida Keys?

The Gulf Loop Current will carry routine drilling muds into the backwaters of the Lower Florida Keys from Eastern Gulf area activities.  The currents would then wrap around the Keys and carry any pollutants up the reef tract. MMS has said drilling anywhere in Lease Sale 181 is “expected to result in small pollution events that could temporarily affect the enjoyment or use of some beach segments in Alabama and Florida.”  The agency estimated that over 40 years, there could be up to 870 spills of 2,000 gallons or less.

The U.S. E.P.A., in a study of Lease Sale 181, warned that if there were a spill, “there is as great as a 47% chance that the slick would reach Florida’s coastal waters before dissipating.  And routine chemical discharges of such pollutants as barium, chromium and arsenic would introduce significant quantities of contaminants to these relatively pristine waters.  All 12 rigs proposed would contribute about 1.65-billion pounds per year of contaminants which could lead to the long term regional degradation of offshore water quality. ”

Oceanographers warn of serious consequences. “We are more at risk from spills in the vicinity of the loop current,” said Christopher Mooers, a University of Miami professor of applied marine physics.  “It could affect the beaches and reefs all the way up the East Coast,” said Robert Weisberg, oceanography professor at University of South Florida who has spent years studying the gulf.  “If any messy stuff should be at the surface in the vicinity of the loop current, it s going to be carried with it, that’s for sure,” added Wilton Sturges, a retired Florida State University oceanography professor. Sturges did a study for Chevron that showed “Under worst-case conditions the spilled stuff could be brought ashore…much faster than any response team could get there to clean it up.  Most bad things happen during nasty weather, when the difficulties of clean-up are at their worst.” Routine drilling muds release thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the environment and place Florida at risk of a large or catastrophic spill. 

What are the Alternatives?

Florida Senator Bill Nelson tells us: “Well, the U.S. failed in the 1970s to enact a real energy program to get us off oil. Result: Brazil runs on ethanol today, not the U.S.; Germany leads the world in solar power, not the U.S. Meantime, the oil companies are awash in record profits – more than $155 billion last year alone – and not spending enough on refineries or alternative energy, while consumers are getting gouged at the pump.  Even worse, it took the U.S. more than 30 years to raise mileage standards on cars and trucks to a paltry 35 miles per gallon.  Most of Europe – and the cars that U.S.-based manufacturers sell there – already averages 43 miles per gallon. Japan is approaching 50 miles per gallon.  In other words, we are wasting billions of gallons of oil.”  (8)

Demand is fueled by consumer dependence on oil and oil-based products derived from non-renewable fossil fuels.  We use oil in our cars and other vehicles, it heats and cools our homes, paves our roads, and provides the raw materials for over 3,000 everyday products including our clothing, the roof over our heads, the paint on our walls, the fiber in the carpet, even the watchbands on our wrists. Unless and until we learn to either reduce our consumption or replace our consumer demands with environmentally-friendly alternatives, the need for oil will continue. 

Fifty percent of the oil we use goes into our transportation. This is where we must focus by enacting serious conservation measures, such as 40 miles per gallon for our vehicles, and, provide bigger tax breaks for hybrid cars. Raising fuel standards on cars would save more oil that new offshore oil wells in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico could provide. Second, the government – led by the president – must enact a national energy program to transition us from gasoline to alternative and synthetic fuels to power much of our transportation. Ethanol and bio-diesel use would benefit American farmers and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  (9)

Conservation would reduce our overall consumption.  This is the Sunshine State–what about solar?  The Florida Legislature recently took steps to provide incentives for ownership of solar systems by consumers and businesses.  California has made a 10-year commitment including a credit on electric bills for producing extra energy.  In the end, it is up to each of us.

Reef Relief recommends these actions we can all do to reduce our dependence on oil:

• Reduce, reuse, recycle.

• Ride bicycles, walk or carpool when possible or drive a hybrid vehicle.

• Recycle used motor oil.

• Avoid over-packaged items.

• Conserve energy. Use fluorescent light bulbs and save half your electric bill. Replace existing appliances with those that minimize energy wasted when turned off,.

• Use non-toxic cleansers, fertilizers, and pesticides.

•  Install solar panels at your home or business. Use roof-mounted solar collectors to heat water.

• Become educated and support conservation issues politically such as an energy policy based on renewable energy such as solar.

• Support environment efforts to protect our oceans through volunteer efforts, in-kind donations or membership contributions.

• Vote for environmentally committed candidates.

• Live simply so that others may simply live.

Potential Impact of Oil Spills/Oil Exploration/Development on the Florida Keys                                   235

DeeVon Quirolo is the retired co-founder of Reef Relief, formerly a global non-profit membership organization dedicated to Protecting Coral Reef Ecosystems. email dquirolo@gmail.com

(1) Oil Spills & Disasters. Infoplease at www.infoplease.com

(2) http://americanwaterways.com/industrystats/transportation/index

(3)  Elizabeth Ridlington, Tony Dutzik; Frontier Group & Rob Sargent. Beyond Oil: The Transportation Fuels That Can Help Reduce Global Warming. Florida Environment Environment Florida Research & Policy Center. July 2008

(4) Florida Coastal and Ocean Coalition letter to Florida Governor Crist dated April 27, 2009

(5)  JeremyJackson, et. Al. 1989. Ecological Effects of a Major Oil Spill on Panamanian Coastal Marine Communities. Science, V. 243, Jan pp.37-43.

(6)  Evans, Ben.   Oil Windfalls May Not Fund Environmental Projects. Associated Press. 2/17/07.

(7) Hunt, David. Gov. Crist, Sen. Nelson and Offshore Drilling, Florida Times Union 4/22/09

(8) Senator Bill Nelson. Drilling Isn’t the Answer editorial letter dated 5/21/09.

(9) Dutzik, Tony; Monopolis, Alexios; Telleen-Lawton, Timothy, Sargent, Rob; Aurilio, Anna.  The Road to a New Energy Future. Environment Florida Research & Policy Center.  October 2006.

Editorial Compilation April 24th, 2009  

It’s pretty unanimous that efforts to open up Florida’s coastline and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico to offshore oil drilling is  opposed by every major newspaper in Florida.  Read the comments here from last year, when the idea was floated while there were upwards of 300 oil lobbyists in Tallahassee.   Thank goodness the Florida Senate refused to take up the issue after it passed in the House.  We must also be vigilant as to what happens at the federal level via the Minerals Managements Service of the Department of the Interior. 

Timor Sea spill monitoring

Timor Sea spill monitoring to take years

AAP October 15, 2009, 6:06 pm

AAP © Enlarge photo

The operators of an oil well leaking into the Timor Sea for more than seven weeks could be monitoring the site for years, a scientist says.

Oil has been leaking into the ocean near PTTEP Australasia’s West Atlas rig since August 21, at a rate initially estimated to be up to 400 barrels a day.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett on Thursday announced a deal had been struck with the Thai-based company for it to pay for environmental monitoring in the Timor Sea for at least two years.

Two attempts to plug the well in the last week have been unsuccessful and another bid is planned for Saturday.

PTTEP has appointed Australian environmental scientist John Wardrop to manage the immediate and long-term monitoring programs.

Mr Wardrop said the monitoring program was one of the biggest in Australia in response to an oil spill.

“It really depends on how the studies go, some of them may last for one year,” Mr Wardrop told AAP.

“For example, if we find with our water quality sampling, there is no simply no residual oil … there’s probably little chance of that being required in subsequent years.

“Some of these studies I’m sure will go for a number of years.”

The leaking facility at PTTEP’s Montara oilfield is more than 200 kilometres off Western Australia’s Kimberley coast.

Conservationists have been critical of the company and the federal government’s response to the oil spill, which occurred in an area that’s home to a number of endangered species.

West Australian Greens senator Scott Ludlum said on Thursday PTTEP had been keen to downplay the impact of the spill.

Senator Ludlum said a two-year monitoring program was not long enough to monitor the life cycles of some fish species.

“It needs to be at least six years,” Senator Ludlum told AAP.

Reports of dead fish and dolphins in Indonesian waters were concerning, Senator Ludlum said.

“This pollution does not respect international marine boundaries,” he said.

Mr Wardrop said issues surrounding the monitoring of Indonesian waters would be dealt with by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

He said he would be surprised if fish stocks in the Timor Sea were adversely affected by the oil spill.

“I would be surprised if there was an impact on the fisheries as such, that tends not to be that case when you have spills, even very large spills in open bodies of water,” Mr Wardrop said.

“Where we’ve seen damage it’s been very large spills in shore, in shallow waters.”

Mr Wardrop said there was minimal risk of the oil, which he describes as “relatively light”, leaving any residual on the seabed.

But it was possible it could leave a residual on reefs in the area, which were being monitored.

PTTEP said it was on track to make a third pass on Saturday to intercept the leaking well, which it plans to plug with mud.

The company is utilising electro-magnetic equipment that it says has never failed in similar relief efforts.

The company is paying for the costs of clean-up efforts and spill control by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which has been spraying dispersant to break up the oil slick and monitoring it on a daily basis.

The West News

Federal Scientists Say Limit Drilling 

By Jim Tankersley and Josh Meyer

October 12, 2009

Reporting from Washington – The federal government’s top ocean scientists are urging the Interior Department to drastically reduce plans to open the coast to offshore oil and gas drilling, citing threats to marine life and potentially devastating effects of oil spills in Arctic waters.

In a letter sent to Interior officials last month, NOAA recommended excluding large tracts of the Alaska coast, the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico from Interior’s draft offshore drilling plan for 2010 to 2015.

NOAA recommends establishing buffer zones around the Southern California Ecological Preserve off Santa Barbara. In addition, it suggests that its broader recommendations, such as taking greater account of drilling’s effects on marine life, could affect potential lease sales off California.

The agency calls for a ban on drilling in the Arctic until oil companies greatly improve their ability to prevent and clean up oil spills. And it asks Interior to delay new drilling plans until an Obama administration ocean policy task force completes its work late this year.

The comments, dated Sept. 9 and obtained by the Washington Bureau, were included in a letter to Interior officials from NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco. They include an often sharp critique of the offshore leasing plan, developed under Bush, that would open swaths of the California coast and other areas to new drilling.

NOAA says the leasing plan’s assessment of the risks of drilling, such as oil spills, is “understated and generally not supported or referenced.”

For example, in Alaska’s North Aleutian Basin and Chukchi Sea, the agency says it is “very concerned about potential impacts to living marine resources and their habitats, viable commercial and recreational fisheries, and subsistence use of marine resources as a result of future lease sales, exploration, and development.”

The recommendations echo concerns raised by an array of environmental and local community groups, fishermen, Alaska Natives and scientists, said Dr. Richard Steiner, a marine biologist at the University of Alaska who has battled Interior over Alaska offshore drilling.

“The significance is that here we have one federal agency supporting what we have been saying all along regarding the push to lease offshore in Alaska,” he said. The agency’s comments, Steiner added, “put Interior in a corner in all of this.”

The recommendations reflect the ascendance at NOAA of environmentalists such as Lubchenco, a marine ecologist who has been outspoken on ecosystem issues and climate change.

“It is refreshing to hear the voices of marine scientists who were silenced for the past eight years,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which has publicized documents that show Bush officials overruling or downplaying environmental concerns.

“If NOAA’s warnings are not heeded,” Ruch added, “Interior’s offshore leasing plans will again be ensnared in litigation.”

NOAA urges the Minerals Management Service — the Interior division that handles offshore drilling — to consider ocean ecosystems, coastal communities and other environmental factors when finalizing a leasing plan.

The agency stresses the challenges of cleaning up an oil spill in remote, icy waters, which NOAA says would be substantially more difficult than cleaning up a spill elsewhere.

The recommendations highlight the competing pressures on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as he weighs whether to amend the Bush-era leasing plan.

Republicans have accused Salazar of dragging his feet and stalling domestic energy production, in part because he extended the time for the public to comment on the plan.

Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington, the top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee, recently accused the administration of placing “a de facto ban on offshore drilling.”

The comment period ended last month, with more than 450,000 submissions, including some from conservation groups, governors and industry representatives.

In a comment representative of the oil industry, BP America enthusiastically supported the Bush plan, writing: “The oil and gas exploration and development sector has a strong record of environmental and safety performance. We believe that if new areas are opened, they can be leased, explored and developed safely and in an environmentally sensitive manner.”

Through a spokeswoman, Salazar remained noncommittal Sunday about the NOAA recommendations. Kendra Barkoff said in a statement that the secretary “welcomes the ongoing input and expertise of NOAA and other federal agencies and looks forward to continuing these discussions as he moves toward decisions that will help us build a comprehensive, responsible offshore energy strategy for the country.”

Last month, in a news release announcing the end of the comment period, Salazar said the future leasing plan “must take into account several key considerations, including areas of the ocean that are critical to military training and the nation’s defenses; other economic benefits of the oceans, including fisheries, tourism, and subsistence uses; environmental considerations; existing oil and gas infrastructure; interest from industry; and the availability of scientific and seismic data.”

jtankersley@latimes.com

josh.meyer@latimes.com