Troubled Waters: When is a Sanctuary Not a Sanctuary?

Guest commentator, Richard Charter, Co-Chair, National OCS Coalition

Even as the annual one-year legislative moratorium was being renewed this summer, the House and the Senate were busy finishing up work on an “omnibus energy bill”.  The flawed final version of this energy bill, as signed into law in late July by President Bush, focused primarily on providing taxpayer-financed exploration and production incentives and generous tax breaks to oil, coal, and nuclear industry special interests, instead of implementing painless oil conservation and energy efficiency measures. This bill specifically requires exploration for offshore oil and gas - called a seismic “OCS Inventory” - throughout the protected congressional moratorium waters and even within the fragile ecosystems of our National Marine Sanctuaries. 

Oops….What Was That Noise?

This “OCS inventory” opens the way for petroleum exploration using large seismic survey ships, each towing a long cable studded with as many as 24 powerful “airguns” that emit tens-of-thousands of sharp undersea explosions. Sound travels very well through water, giving oil companies the ability to create sophisticated three-dimensional computer models of subsea geologic structures using reflected airgun impulses. Airgun arrays produce sound at frequencies that are concentrated in the range from 20 to 150 Hz, well within the auditory range of many marine species, including large whales. These blasts recur at a rate of every 7 to 15 seconds, for 16 to 20 hours at a time.  The strong shockwaves from seismic airgun surveys can be detected underwater throughout entire oceanic basins, and seismic surveys along Canada’s East Coast have been picked up by hydrophones (undersea electronic sound sensors) as far away as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.  In recent scientific studies, airgun activities have been implicated in fatal beachings and strandings of various types of marine mammals.  Airguns also cause permanent damage to the auditory organs of certain fish, impairing their ability to hear.  Since fish rely on sound to find mates, locate prey, and avoid predators, seismic survey airgun blasts can compromise their ability to survive.  In addition, it appears that the “OCS Inventory” provision of the first 2005 energy bill is intended to also allow an invasive seafloor exploration technology called “dart core sampling”.  Dart cores are heavily weighted, massive steel tubes, dropped over the side of petroleum survey ships to gather seafloor sediments used to chemically “ground-truth” the accompanying seismic airgun survey data.  Silt plumes, turbidity, and other pollution throughout the water column accompany the direct physical damage to seafloor benthic organisms resulting from the use of dart cores. A periodic report to Congress from all “OCS Inventory” data is required to “identify and explain how legislative, regulatory, and administrative programs or processes restrict or impede the development of identified resources and the extent that they affect domestic supply.”  “Administrative programs”, as defined by this bill, could easily be construed to mean the entire National Marine Sanctuary Program itself.

Political Opportunism Stalks Our Coast, with a Hurricane as an Excuse:

In August, Congress went home for their annual recess and then Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. During Katrina, the oil companies lost at least 52 offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, with more than 110 others damaged and 9 million gallons of oil spilled from various types of installations. When temporary petroleum pipeline and refining disruptions related to the hurricane caused a spike in natural gas prices, suddenly the California coastline became one of the prime targets for new federal offshore drilling plans.  In response, Rep. Pombo (R- Tracy) proposed a second, “new”, proposal for an energy bill.  This bill has been imaginatively called the “Ocean State Options Act of 2005”.  This bill proposed to immediately rescind the legislative OCS moratorium everywhere.  In addition, the Pombo bill proposed offering monetary bribes to coastal states by tempting them with a share of federal revenues from offshore drilling as a fiscal inducement to accept more offshore oil and gas leases.  States would also have the option of asking the Secretary of Interior for an additional five years of temporary coastal protection.  Under the scheme of “carrots and sticks” in the Pombo bill, a state could ask for such an extension of coastal protection only twice, for a total of ten years.  After ten years, the oil industry could have access to any part of any coast it wants to drill.  Perhaps as alarming as any other provision of the Pombo bill, all federal waters deemed to have the potential for oil and gas extraction would be immune from the creation of any type of new marine protected area, including any new or expanded national marine sanctuary.  Fortunately, during the wee hours one night in late November 2005, as the House considered their otherwise-contentious Budget Reconciliation Package, the Pombo bill died.

What If We Can Only Save the Last Few Places?

Because of these threats, concerned Housemembers and Senators are already trying to formulate a last-ditch way to protect specific portions of the California coast.  Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma) and California’s Senator Barbara Boxer (D) have introduced their own coastal protection bill to expand the present boundaries of the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Banks National Marine Sanctuaries from Bodega Bay northward up to the mouth of the Gualala River.  Were Mr. Pombo’s radical approach to somehow prevail, this new zone, and the existing sanctuaries, would be all we have left in terms of permanently protecting the California coast from offshore drilling.

Sanctuaries Not Really Sanctuaries?

At this writing, Mr. Pombo’s bill still looms out there, invisible just beyond that serene ocean horizon, waiting for a legislative vehicle on which to hitch a ride.  An effort to reverse the first 2005 energy bill, in order to create an exemption for our sanctuaries from seismic airgun testing, is being evaluated by the conservation and fishing communities nationwide.  The original drafters of the National Marine Sanctuary Act obviously intended the designation of a marine sanctuary to protect America’s crown jewels of the coastal environment - not to put these areas at risk as a testing ground for invasive technologies proven to harm most life in the oceans.  Enjoy your coast and our sanctuaries while you can, and consider yourself invited to join the renewed fight to protect these waters if you want to keep our ocean healthy.  Until the current session of Congress adjourns, and likely again next year, nothing is sacred, not even our national marine sanctuaries.

 

Richard Charter serves as Co-Chair of the National Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Coalition, and has been working for nearly three decades to ensure continued protection for sensitive coastlines threatened by offshore oil and gas drilling. Richard coordinated the local government support that led to the creation of the Gulf of the Farallones, Cordell Bank, Channel Islands, and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries. He currently works on ocean protection issues throughout the Pacific Rim, including offshore oil and gas, ocean mining, carbon sequestration and the creation of marine protected areas to restore damaged fisheries and restore coastal ecosystems.

 

Take Action: Write your representatives and tell them that you oppose seismic testing that harms marine life!

 

Learn more:

Read more about Richard Charter's long battle to keep our North coast free from offshore drilling.

Visit the Natural Resources Defense Council's BioGEMS website for more information on sonar's effects on marine life. Watch a movie and slideshow.

Seaflow's mission is to stop sonar blasts and airgun testing that affects marine mammals.