Gulf rigs could tar both coasts
If oil drilling dotted the eastern gulf, leaks would ride the current, scientists say.
By CRAIG PITTMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published November 14, 2005
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If Congress allows the boundary for oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to move within 125 miles of Florida, a broad segment of the state's coastal beaches would be at risk for pollution, oceanographers say.
Oil and gas rigs in that part of the eastern gulf would be affected by the powerful loop current, which circulates warm water from the Caribbean Sea up toward Louisiana, then sweeps it down through the Straits of Florida, around the Keys and up the Atlantic coast to join the Gulf Stream.
It's the same current blamed for fueling a couple of powerful hurricanes in the gulf this year.
"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.
Pollution from the rigs that settles into the loop current would flow south and coat the Keys, then be pushed north and wreak further havoc, oceanographers said.
"It could affect the beaches and reefs all the way up the East Coast," said Robert Weisberg, an oceanography professor at the 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 is going to be carried with it, that's for sure," said Wilton Sturges, a retired Florida State University oceanography professor.
Last week the U.S. House of Representatives was poised to vote on a bill that would have moved the boundary, but at the last minute the language was removed from the bill. Advocates of the move say they will try again.
The proposal that the House was to vote on was crafted partly by Gov. Jeb Bush and said that after 2012 all U.S. waters would be open to gas exploration as close as 25 miles offshore and oil exploration as close as 50 miles. States such as Florida could then petition the Interior Department to keep drilling 125 miles offshore.
That's still too close for antidrilling advocates.
"Just because they're out of sight doesn't mean they're not polluting," complained Enid Sisskin of the Panhandle's Gulf Coast Environmental Defense.
Bush, who in 1999 called himself "resolutely opposed to allowing oil and gas leasing, exploration or development off Florida's coasts," now backs the House proposal as a reasonable compromise to keep drilling away from the state.
When reporters pointed out that some Floridians want no drilling in the eastern gulf, Bush said, "That's great. I'll talk to the fairy godmother about it."
The deal would open a swath of the eastern gulf about 213 miles from Tampa Bay, known as Lease Sale Area 181, to drilling immediately - three years after Bush and his brother, President Bush, said no drilling would occur in 181.
In a letter to the governor last month, Weisberg warned that drilling in the eastern gulf "is not environmentally sound for the state of Florida." A Bush aide thanked Weisberg for his interest.
Despite those concerns, Florida Petroleum Council spokesman David Mica said the oil and gas industry has a "pretty darn good" record of keeping the gulf clean, and "hopefully we could meet any kind of environmental consideration that would be appropriate."
Over the past 40 years, oil companies have drilled about 10,000 wells across the gulf. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were willing to overlook the pollution, trash and tar balls that washed ashore in exchange for a rich bounty of cash and jobs.
But Florida's tourism-based economy depends on having clean beaches and lots of fish to catch. So Florida's business and political leaders have joined forces with environmental activists to keep the eastern gulf off limits.
Before now, the most recent battle concerned a plan by Chevron to sink 21 wells in Area 181. The U.S. Minerals Management Service said drilling anywhere in Area 181 "is expected to result in small pollution events that could temporarily affect the enjoyment or use of some beach segments in Alabama or Florida." The agency estimated that over 40 years there could be up to 870 spills of 2,000 gallons or less.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warned that if there were a spill, "there is as great as a 47 percent chance that the slick would reach Florida's coastal waters before dissipating."
Sturges did a study funded by Chevron "that showed that under worst-case conditions the spilled stuff could be brought ashore ... much faster than any response team could get there to clean it up," he said.
"It is a real crap shoot about when it might happen, of course," he added. "Most bad things happen during nasty weather, when the difficulties of cleanups are at their worst."
This year, the warm water of the Loop Current fueled Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as they tore through the offshore rigs, pipelines and refineries in the central and western gulf. As a result, U.S. Coast Guard officials said more than 7-million gallons of petroleum products spilled. By comparison, in 1989 the Exxon Valdez spilled 11-million gallons.
Smaller spills are far more common. The Coast Guard has documented more than 239,000 oil spills between 1973 and 2001.
Some environmental advocates say their biggest concern is not a big spill but pollution generated by the rigs' routine operation. In a study of the Area 181 proposal, the EPA warned routine chemical discharges of such pollutants as barium, chromium and arsenic would "introduce significant quantities of contaminants to these relatively pristine waters."
In its study of the Chevron proposal, the Minerals Management Service predicted all 12 rigs "would contribute about 1.65-billion pounds per year of contaminants," which could lead to "the long-term, regional degradation of offshore water quality."
--Times staff writer Wes Allison contributed to this report.
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