Taking out an oil rig in the Gulf, he said, "is like cutting down a forest of thousand-year-old trees. "
Marine Life Complicates Removal of Old Oil Rigs
Cheryl Lyn Dybas Special to The Washington Post 1,181 words 11 April 2005 The Washington Post FINAL A10ServiceLine Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co.
A rusting oil rig perched on the muddy bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, notorious for its vast "dead zone" off the Mississippi Delta, might seem an unlikely setting for a thriving ecosystem.
But that is exactly what Paul Sammarco has found on more than a dozen of the 4,000-plus drilling platforms that dot the Gulf.
Sammarco, a marine biologist at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, has discovered that the rigs have spawned lush marine habitats that are home to a profusion of rare corals and 10,000 to 30,000 fish each.
The results of his research, which he will publish later this spring in the journal Marine Biology, have thrown a surprising new wrinkle into an ongoing debate on how best to dispose of the thousands of old rigs due to be abandoned as oil and gas production winds down. His work has also raised questions about the "Rigs to Reefs" program under which states bordering
the Gulf have been turning old rigs into artificial reefs designed to sustain fish, sponges and other marine life.
Most Gulf oil fields in depths of less than 600 feet will become unproductive in the next 10 to 15 years, industry sources say. The platforms will be abandoned at the rate of 150 to 200 a year, and federal law requires that they be removed within a year after the end of exploration and production.
"There's a problem with that in the Gulf of Mexico," Sammarco said. "Most of the bottom is mud, so oil rigs provide the only hard bottom on which marine animals can settle and hunt for food. Once a rig is moved in any way, an entire ecosystem is gone."
The fate of the oil rigs has also attracted the attention of fishermen such as Dan Leonard, who raises clams at his Bull Bay Clam Farm, near here. He thinks the platforms could be the foundation for an offshore ocean farming business.
Leonard described his vision recently as he pushed the throttle of his boat "Scow" to full power, with the vessel skimming the waters toward a four-acre area of sea bottom he had seeded six months ago with tiny clams. A biting wind blew across the Gulf of Mexico, throwing up waves carrying red tide, a bloom of toxic algae. He has leased the sea-bottom tract from the state of Florida for years, but he has not been able to harvest clams
this spring because of the red tide. He pointed to the dead and dying mangrove trees lying like fallen soldiers along the shore. Hard hit by several hurricanes, the ailing mangroves, like the red tide, are ominous signs, Leonard believes.
"If it's not hurricane damage doing us in, it's red tides, or it's out-of-control development all along the coast. We need to move offshore and try this away from where our farms can be so easily destroyed," he said. "Sitting in the Gulf are hundreds of oil rigs no longer being used, so why not take advantage of them?"
Leonard is not alone in thinking that the Gulf's drilling platforms have more to offer.
For differing reasons, aquaculture farmers, biotechnology companies, fishermen, scientists and oil executives agree that a new life could await the rigs once they are no longer needed for drilling. But in a bit of environmental irony, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which requires the removal of obsolete oil rigs, stands in the way of these proposed uses and threatens the surprising marine habitats.
Under the Rigs to Reefs program, the platforms are either towed elsewhere and sunk, tipped on their sides or cut down well below the water's surface so they would no longer be hazards to navigation. The problem, Sammarco said, is that "an oil rig's biggest contribution to marine life, whether to the species that naturally settle on it or to future aquaculture or biotechnology uses, is in the shallow waters where sunlight penetrates."
For that, he said, the structure needs to remain at or near the Gulf's surface. "The federal law and resulting state management plans were devised before anyone knew about the profusion of marine life on oil rigs," said Steve Kolian, a marine scientist at the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources.
Kolian is a member of the Louisiana Platforms for Mariculture Task Force, which is calling for a revision of the law to make the platform removal requirements more flexible. Getting rid of the platforms currently costs the oil and gas companies $300
million to $400 million each year, according to industry reports, and under the current law, they will eventually face a bill of more than $10 billion to remove all obsolete oil structures.
Chuck Bedell, director of environmental affairs for Murphy Oil Corp., a Louisiana company with ongoing production in the Gulf of Mexico, said that, because of the costs, the industry supports the effort to keep rigs in place, "as long as we can find a way to transfer ownership and liability for 'retired' platforms."
In the previous Congress, then-Rep. David Vitter (R-La.), now a senator, introduced a bill to authorize the use of obsolete oil platforms for culturing marine species, scientific research and as artificial reefs. "Nations like Japan are spending billions of dollars to create offshore structures for mariculture," Vitter said. "Our waters already have them in place, but our policy is to remove them, destroying thriving marine
environments." The House bill died, but Vitter said he plans to try again in the Senate.
Vitter may have to contend with the recent efforts of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Murkowski introduced a bill in the previous Congress to block permits for fish farms more than three miles offshore until further scientific studies can be conducted. She cited fears that closely packed fish in pens could spread disease, as well as concerns over the possible
genetic impact of escaped farmed fish interbreeding with their wild counterparts.
The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, in a report issued last year, backed open-ocean aquaculture under specific conditions.
In response, the White House has proposed a National Offshore Aquaculture Act giving the Department of Commerce authority to regulate open-ocean aquaculture, clearing the way for such ventures.
Al Walker, owner of Xtreme Fishing Charters in Venice, La., hopes that "all these efforts don't somehow get tangled up."
Taking out an oil rig in the Gulf, he said, "is like cutting down a forest of thousand-year-old trees. While they're debating in Washington, marine life on the Gulf's oil rigs -- and the people and businesses that might benefit from it -- are left high and dry."
Said Sammarco: "We've created these ecosystems, now it's up to us to keep them alive. Removing old oil rigs is 'pulling the plug' on many of the Gulf of Mexico's rare and important marine species."
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