U.S. bans more Gulf fishing as oil fears grow for Florida<\/a><\/p>\n Obama’s ocean chief dismisses loop current threat: ‘Very little tarballs!’<\/a><\/p>\n A new oil rush endangers the Gulf of Mexico and the planet<\/a><\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tby Emilie Karrick Surrusco <\/p>\n
We’ve all seen the horrifying footage of the oil leaking,
\nleaking and still leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.
\nAnd we’ve watched as BP’s CEO Tony Hayward has made such ludicrous statements
\nas the Gulf is a big place, there really isn’t that much oil if you compare it
\nto all that water. What’s more, we’ve read that BP repeatedly told Minerals
\nManagement Service (MMS), the federal agency charged with overseeing offshore
\ndrilling in our nation’s waters, that their proposed plans for the Deepwater
\nHorizon rig posed minimal risk to the environment so there really was no reason
\nto prepare for a disaster. And, MMS took them at their word.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fast forward 43 days and we could be watching the same story
\nunfold in one of our nation’s last pristine, untouched places—Alaska’s
\nArctic Ocean.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Right now, Shell Oil is moving forward with plans for
\nexploratory drilling, the very same type that Deepwater Horizon was doing in
\nthe Gulf, in the Arctic’s Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. As they await the final
\npermits from MMS, Shell has submitted their final assurances on the soundness
\nof their plans—a letter sent on Friday contains such common sense-defying
\nassertions as “in Arctic conditions, ice can aid oil spill response.” Like BP,
\nthey never bothered to put together much of a plan for a blowout because “a
\nlarge oil spill, such as a crude release from a blowout, is extremely rare and
\nnot considered a reasonably foreseeable impact.” And just as they did with BP,
\nMMS thus far has taken Shell at their word. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are some differences between the Gulf and the Arctic.
\nOne difference, that Shell continues to trot out as their top
\nnothing-to-worry-about-here talking point, is that the Arctic
\nis much shallower than the Gulf. While this may be true and this may sound
\noddly reassuring to those of us who like to be able to see the bottom of the
\npool when we’re treading water, it doesn’t mean much when it comes to an
\noffshore well blowout. In fact, according to a recent report by Elmer P.
\nDanenberger III, who was an expert witness in front of Congress just last week,
\nblowouts are more likely in shallow waters than in deep waters. From 1992
\nto 2006, the majority of the blowouts that occurred in our nation’s offshore
\nwaters were from shallow water wells. So much for Shell’s “we don’t need to
\nplan for a blowout because it would never happen in shallow water” messaging.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And the ice thing. First thing I should mention is that not
\nonly does sea ice cover the Arctic Ocean for much of the year but the weather
\nconditions that come with it are far from hospitable to activities such as
\ncleaning up an offshore oil spill. In the Gulf, clean up was held up by 8-foot
\nwaves. In the Arctic, the waves tend to form
\n20-foot crests, with gale force winds and negative temperatures in October. It
\ncould be months before the clean-up crews could travel the hundreds of miles
\nbetween them and an Arctic spill site—and find conditions that would lend
\nthemselves to effective spill response. In the Gulf, there were 32 vessels on
\nhand within 24 hours of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. In the Arctic,
\nthat capacity is 13 vessels. The closest boat dock is 250 miles away from the
\nproposed well sites in the Chukchi Sea and it abuts the tiny village of
\nWainwright (population: 546). As numerous other federal agencies
\n(including MMS) and the U.S. Coast Guard have said: “There has been little
\nexperience with under-ice or broken-ice oil spills, and there is little
\nevidence to suggest that the capability exists currently to successfully clean
\nup a spill of this type up in a timely manner.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But all that’s okay because in Shell’s world, the ice will
\ntake care of things and the oil will be easier to clean up because it will be
\ncontained within the ice that forms the basis of one of our planet’s most
\nabundant and unique ecosystems. This isn’t just ice we’re talking about people—the ice plays host to algae, that feeds a phytoplankton bloom in the water
\nbeneath the ice, that feeds crustaceans and other invertebrates, that feeds numerous
\nfish species, that feed seals, birds and whales, that feed polar bears and
\nhumans. I’m no scientist, but that sounds like a lot of life under that ice
\nthat would be destroyed by oil. And, as a young man in Point Hope, Alaska,
\nwho grew up hunting, eating and celebrating fish, birds, seals, whales, and
\npolar bears and now feeds his own family with the same subsistence traditions,
\nsaid: “The ice may contain the spill but who will contain the ice?”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Folks like that young man, who call the Arctic Ocean their
\ngarden because it feeds their past, their future, their way of being, have been
\nwatching the footage in the Gulf with a horrific sense of foreboding. We and
\nthe Obama administration owe it to them—not to mention our planet—to stop
\ntaking oil companies at their word. The Gulf disaster has shown us what can
\nhappen. Let’s not tempt fate and wait for worse to happen in the Arctic.<\/p>\n
Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n U.S. bans more Gulf fishing as oil fears grow for Florida<\/a><\/p>\n Obama’s ocean chief dismisses loop current threat: ‘Very little tarballs!’<\/a><\/p>\n A new oil rush endangers the Gulf of Mexico and the planet<\/a><\/p>\n
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