- Drilling means spilling, hundreds of annual incidents,
most small, unreported, yet their cumulative effect is devastating, what
the industry and nightly news won't mention or explain.
-
- On February 25, 2009, Environmental Research web.org
writer Kate Ravilious did, headlining "Small unreported oil spills
add up to major damage," saying:
-
- Big spills make headlines while small ones "often
go unnoticed and unreported. But these little slicks could be just as damaging
to the environment as large spills, according to new research findings."
-
- Barcelona, Spain Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
Professors Jose Redondo and Alexei Platonov developed a way to spot spills
from satellite images. They show that "small oil spills are very common,
and when added together they become comparable to large" ones. Their
frequency makes them damaging, yet little about them is reported.
-
- Studying European waters alone, they determined that
major spills happen every few years, large ones three or four times a year,
and smaller ones virtually daily. Extrapolated globally over time amounts
to a major environmental problem, compounded by many small incidents and
natural seepage - as much as 14 million barrels a year globally offshore.
-
- "For example, it seems that there are four to five
times more spills (large and small) in East Asia than in European Coastal
waters," and Middle East ones experience "significantly more
spills." Most often, negligence to cut costs is why.
-
- According to Redondo and Platonov, "the cumulative
effect and toxic dose (of small spills) is the same as a large spill, and
will be detected in the long run," as well as their environmental
damage, slowly destroying the health of global waters.
-
- Charles Clusen, Natural Resources Defense Council National
Parks and Alaska Projects director believes up to 500 spills happen annually
and will increase with greater production, plus natural seeps adding more.
According to former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA)
supervisory researcher Jeff Short:
-
- "Once you have a spill, you are pretty much screwed.
That's because oil spreads on water at a rate of one-half a football field
per second. Recovery can take decades."
-
- Another expert says offshore spills cause more damage
than a terrorist attack. They're unacceptable risks - reason enough to
ban all shallow and deep water drilling and strictly regulate the rest.
Besides daily spills, the Gulf of Mexico alone has experienced over 500
oil rig fires since 2006, most never reported, the latest on September
2. More on it below.
-
- Exhibit A in Alaska was the Prince William Sound Exxon-Valdez
incident. After over 20 years of natural weathering, it remains an environmental
and human catastrophe, and it was minor compared to BP's greatest ever
environmental crime.
-
- On land, drilling is hazardous, but offshore requires
complex technology, greatly increasing the risks. According to UC Berkeley
Engineering Professor Robert Bea:
-
- "This is a pretty frigging complex system. You've
got equipment and steel strung out over a long piece of geography starting
at the surface and terminating at 18,000 (or more) feet below the sea surface.
So it has many potential weak points," compounded by negligence to
cut costs. "Just as Katrina's storm surge damage found weaknesses
in those piles of dirt - the levees - gas likes to find weakness in anything
we connect to that source."
-
- Drilling is a dirty, dangerous business. The long-term
harm greatly outweighs the benefits. Besides spills and other accidents,
the ecological damage is immense, contaminating waters and shorelines.
Drilling releases toxic muds, containing poisonous heavy metals, including
mercury, cadmium and lead, as well as dangerous amounts of arsenic, benzene
and radioactive minerals. According to the EPA:
-
- Drilling "may leave behind waste containing concentrations
of naturally-occurring radioactive material (NORM) from the surrounding
soils and rocks. Once exposed or concentrated by human activity, (it) becomes
Technologically-Enhanced NORM or TENORM. Radioactive materials are not
necessarily present in the soils at every well or drilling site. However,
in some areas of the country, such as the upper Midwest and Gulf Coast
states, the soils are more likely to contain radioactive material."
-
- "Radioactive wastes from oil and gas drilling take
the form of produced water, drilling mud, sludge, slimes, or evaporation
ponds and pits. It can also concentrate in the mineral scales that form
in pipes (pipe scale), storage tanks, or other extraction equipment."
-
- Naturally occurring radioactive materials include radium
and radon gas, potent carcinogens that accumulate in water, wildlife, plants
and vegetables, and take 1,600 years to degrade. Combined with other toxins
(after decades of offshore drilling) has left vast areas of global waters
dangerously toxic - why nothing in them should be eaten.
-
- The Latest Reason to Ban All Offshore Drilling
-
- On September 2, operating 100 miles south of Louisiana's
Vermilion Bay in shallow water (several hundred feet deep), a rig operated
by Mariner Energy, Inc. (a Houston-based independent oil and gas producer)
exploded and caught fire, a company press release saying:
-
- The company "confirms that a fire has occurred at
a production platform located on Vermilion Block 380, approximately 100
miles from the Louisiana coast. All 13 members of the crew have been evacuated
and safely accounted for. No injuries have been reported. In an initial
flyover, no hydrocarbon spill was reported."
-
- False. Workers told rescuers they heard a blast, saw
a fire, and had to jump into Gulf waters to be safe. One injury was reported.
The Coast Guard said a mile-long, hundred foot wide oil sheen was seen
near the site, then later about-faced saying no oil was spotted. It's there
and spreading, but there's no indication how much or whether the release
was contained. First reported at 9:20AM, the fire was extinguished about
six hours later.
-
- Mariner's rig is a production, not drilling platform
like BP's. At year end 2009, it produced 47% oil and 53% natural gas. The
company has interests in nearly 350 offshore leases, including over 80
in deep water down to 7,100 feet. More than 110 are in development.
-
- According to the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOE, formerly the Mineral
Management Service - MMS), federal authorities cited Mariner and its related
operations for 10 Gulf accidents in the past four years. They included
platform fires, oil spills and a blowout. In a 2008 incident, one employee
sustained serious injuries. In early 2010, the company was fined $55,000
for safety violations.
-
- Consider its history. As a former Enron unit, it faced
bankruptcy, saved only by private equity investors buying it at fire sale
prices. On April 15, Apache Corp., America's largest independent oil and
gas producer, announced plans to buy Mariner, calling the deal "a
strategic step and a natural extension into the deepwater Gulf....provid(ing)
an exciting new platform for growth...." The agreement is still on,
Apache saying it's monitoring developments closely but hopes to complete
its acquisition in a matter of weeks.
-
- Final Comments
-
- Despite offshore drilling dangers; the industry's history
of violations, accidents, and spills, some major like BP's; and the growing
contamination of waters and coastal areas, the rage to drill is unabated,
few in Congress willing to challenge Big Oil's muscle.
-
- After the Mariner explosion, however, environmental groups
are flexing theirs, wanting offshore drilling banned, Greenpeace USA's
oceans campaign director, John Hocevar, saying:
-
- "How many times are we going to gamble with lives,
economies and ecosystems? It's time we learn from our mistakes and go beyond
oil," for sure stop drilling offshore to get it.
-
- Jackie Savitz, senior campaign director for the environmental
group Oceana agrees, saying:
-
- "We think all offshore oil drilling should be banned,
but not just the deepwater drilling. Even oil spills in shallow water are
bad. It doesn't have to be in deep water to be a disaster."
-
- Environment America's Mike Gravitz said Obama "need(s)
no further wake-up call to permanently ban new drilling."
-
- In a September 2 press release, the Center for Biological
Diversity said:
-
- "Today's explosion....is the latest in a string
of accidents in recent decades illustrating the dangers of offshore drilling
in shallow (or deep) waters." It called for expanding the moratorium,
explaining that "Offshore drilling is an inherently unsafe, toxic
activity that, every day, puts people and the environment at risk."
Only one solution can work - a total ban.
-
- After the BP incident, a coalition of 14 environmental
groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace, wrote
Obama, urging a permanent moratorium, saying:
-
- "In response to the BP drilling disaster, we specifically
urge you to establish a presidential drilling moratorium which would permanently
restore coastal protections for areas currently not leased for offshore
oil and gas drilling, and cancel exploratory drilling permits for the Beaufort
and Chukchi seas. Furthermore, we urge you to use the full force of your
office to push for a comprehensive bill that cuts oil consumption, curbs
global warming pollution and shifts us towards clean energy."
-
- The group also called for a "top to bottom review
of worker safety, blowout avoidance technology, and oil spill clean up
plans for operations in the Outer Continental Shelf."
-
- Others believe only a total ban can work, shifting America's
fossil fuel addiction to alternative, clean sources. The choice is simple
- either a healthy, safe environment or one contaminated and destroyed.
There may be little time left to decide.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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