DRILL WILL: Despite U.S. Geological Survey warnings that drilling in Arctic waters north of Alaska could have deleterious effects on ocean habitats and wildlife, the Obama administration proceeded with a lifting of the moratorium on offshore drilling. Pictured: An oiled brown pelican awaits cleaning in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Image: Tom MacKensie, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
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Dear EarthTalk: The oil industry is planning what some call a dangerous strategy of drilling for oil on the outer continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean. What’s going on?—Vera Bailey, New Hope, Pa.
In November 2011 the Obama administration began lifting the moratorium on off-shore drilling that had been imposed in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a five year plan including 15 leases for oil development on Alaska’s Outer Continental Shelf and in the Gulf of Mexico. For now the East and West coasts of the continental U.S. have been spared from drilling, but environmentalists are particularly worried about opening up the fragile Alaskan Arctic to off-shore rigs.
“This five-year program will make available for development more than three-quarters of undiscovered oil and gas resources estimated on the [Outer Continental Shelf], including frontier areas such as the Arctic, where we must proceed cautiously, safely and based on the best science available,” Salazar told reporters.
Republicans were incensed that more acreage was not being made available for off-shore drilling, but environmentalists couldn’t believe what they were hearing for different reasons: In June 2011 the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) had released a 292-page report commissioned by Interior Secretary Salazar “to identify the gaps in scientific or technical knowledge about how drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas north of Alaska would affect the region,” reports Jerry Bellinson in Popular Mechanics. The report, Bellinson says, “details several areas where those gaps exist, including oil-spill cleanup technologies, basic mapping of currents and the effects of underwater noise on sea mammals.” Despite the USGS’s warnings, the Obama administration decided to proceed anyway.
“Drilling infrastructure permanently alters ocean floor habitats,” reports Defenders of Wildlife. “Drill rig footprints, undersea pipelines, dredging ship channels, and dumped drill cuttings—the rock material dug out of the oil or gas well—are often contaminated with drilling fluid used to lubricate and regulate the pressure in drilling operations.” The group adds that contaminated sediments are carried long distances by currents and can kill important small bottom-dwelling creatures at the bottom of the marine food chain.
Defenders also argues that spills, leaks and occasional BP-like catastrophes are unavoidable with off-shore oil drilling, if history is any guide. “Even with safety protocols in place, leaks and spills are inevitable—each year U.S. drilling operations send an average of 880,000 gallons of oil into the ocean.”
As for wildlife, off-shore drilling can have devastating effects even with no spills or leaks. “Seismic surveys conducted during oil and gas exploration cause temporary or permanent hearing loss, induce behavioral changes, and even physically injure marine mammals such as whales, seals and dolphins,” reports Defenders. “Construction noise from new facilities and pipelines is also likely to interfere with foraging and communication behaviors of birds and mammals. Because they are at the top of the food chain, many marine mammals will be exposed to the dangers of bioaccumulation of organic pollutants and metals.” And off-shore drilling only adds insult to injury as far as Defenders is concerned: “In the face of the climate crisis, the U.S. needs to look for ways to decrease petroleum consumption, not…increase it.”
CONTACTS: Defenders of Wildlife, www.defenders.org; Popular Mechanics, www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/coal-oil-gas/oil-drilling-in-the-arctic-ocean-is-it-safe.
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9 Comments
Add CommentThe offshore fossil fuel resources will eventually need to be developed. At a time when the USA needs job creation why not develop the capability to utilize these resources today. That would not necessarily mean that we would use all those resources today, but it would lessen the risk to the US of having our lack of domestic energy being used against us by a foreign country.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article states: “Republicans were incensed that more acreage was not being made available for off-shore drilling, but environmentalists couldn’t believe what they were hearing for different reasons”
BTW- I am not a republican and do believe we should protect the environment.
First off, America doesn't have enough oil reserves to become energy independent. We will always have to import oil, and if you think the U.S. and Saudis are going to let their relationship deteriorate for "national security," then you don't know jack about politics. A few hundred oil jobs weighed against the potential of an oil spill in the Arctic is a horrible wager. Just because the oil is there doesn't mean it has to be exploited. At some point we have to learn that the earth is not a supermarket to be picked clean by voracious profiteers. It's our f**king home.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOffshore fossil fuels do not 'need' to be developed. This is about $$$. There is money to be made. Since we need to quantify everything in terms of money or costs, the 'costs' of damage to the delicate environs can be written off. But the real 'costs' of our refusal to address our impacts on the planet and how we can develop in a sustainable and, hopefully harmonious, fashion will be a terrible burden for the future generations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe idea that drilling for oil in the Arctic is somehow creating 'energy independence' and 'security' for America is a totally lame argument. Oil, and coal, are global commodities. The oil coming out of the Arctic may well go to China or Japan. We currently are exporting vast quanities of cheap coal from Wyoming to India and China. And doing so at the cost of local environmental damage in the western states. America is not a separate world. We are part of the global society. Time to thing in those terms and quit buying into the lies being fed us by those seeking to profit off of our ignorance and gullibility.
I hate it when people don't spell check their work. Sorry, but I hope you can read around to get to the idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMrsWormer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou might look more closely at what I have written. I did not write that we should develop the resources to achieve energy independence.
Do you deny that those resources will be utilized at some time? Do you deny that it would lessen the ability of a non-north American nation from disrupting our energy supplies or threatening that action? Do you deny that developing those resources will create jobs at a time when that is critically needed?
Yarberry- Yes fossil fuels are a global commodity. They are also a global commodity that can and have had their supplies disrupted as tools of international diplomacy throughout history. Do you deny that these resources will eventually be developed? They of course will. It is only a question of when.
Big oil companies can't be trusted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCareless spills can be avoided, just another $'s oil lie.
You used the word that affirms my point; commodity. We see fossil fuels (and most resources) in economic terms. This view, by its very nature, is not capable of addressing the non-economic value of places like the Arctic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, unfortunately, yes I do beleive these will be developed (read exploited), because as I said it is about $$$.
If oil is present only in the kind of sedimentary rocks named "calcareous", and most of the floor of the Arctic ocean is made, either by alluvium soil or of newly formed crust from the ascending plumes of magma under the plates, I'd say that the only you'll find by drilling in the Arctic will be pebbles, somebody spent not long ago $600 million drilling for Oil around Iceland to find nothing, something that could have been predicted, as all the bottom in the central region of the Atlantic ocean is new sea floor, no sediments at all there, and Iceland is an island of pure volcanic origin, so you'll find nothing there but Olivine and things like.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem with drilling is it is a total mess from start to finish.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is still a lot of abandon equipment in the Arctic and Antarctica from old expeditions and oil exploration. Lots of old oil drums and non-biodegradable stuff that needs packing out.
Does the government think we won't notice any trash, oil, or structures dumped or left in the ocean? Does Obama and the oil companies think we live on the motto "out of sight, out of mind"?
You can see all the wildlife that uses the contested 1002 area on these many ANWR maps. The area backs up to the Beaufort Sea/Arctic Ocean and could be radically effected by any spill.
http://www.cccarto.com/ANWR/ANWR.html