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Tuesday, March 2, 2010
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Five things you can do related to the gulf oil spill
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Surfrider Foundation's Alternative Ocean Energy Blog
3 comments:
A Real Chance : 3/1/2010
Anyone who still believes the PXP/GOO/CPA/EDC deal is unenforceable and somehow helps oil companies has their head in the sand. Let's hope Nava and Jordan open their eyes and help end offshore oil drilling.
http://www.independent.com/news/2010/mar/01/pxp-and-edc-grand-plan/
Under current law, oil companies have the right to drill without any end dates.
I beg to differ, dfgdgdgd.
Here is a letter I posted to the SB Independent regarding the local groups that are trying to enable the first offshore drilling in the state sanctuary in 41 years for unproven benefits and unenforceable end dates. Over 100 statewide environmental organizations oppose this plan because of the wider implications for new drilling across the country.
Dear EDC, GOO and CPA:
With all due respect for your century of fighting offshore drilling, when are you going to recognize that you are a very powerful pawn for Big Oil regardless of the purported but clearly unproven benefits from this deal?
No mention how the Governor is using this plan as extortion to get State Parks financed?
No mention of Chuck DeVore's bill (R-Irvine) that would open the entire state coastal sanctuary to offshore drilling for just this type of "historic, one-time" deal, and would take oversight away the State Lands Commission because they obviously refuse to listen to your "facts?"
We can discuss the (de)merits of the Tranquillon Ridge proposal, but in reality, this is not only about four platforms and some land donations. This is about creating a politico-business model for opening the coasts to MORE OIL AND GAS DRILLING in the state sanctuary and the federal Outer-Continental Shelf by renumerating organizations such as yourselves to stump for them, as well as supplying revenues to governmental entities for political cover.
GOO understands a thing or two about oil spills and the damage from drilling muds and pipelines -- how about the increased risk of pollution and blowouts? Will PXP pay for that as part of this landmark deal? Spills happen on high-technology rigs as those on the Kimberley Coast of West Australia can attest.
In your own vacuum, I clearly see that you are principled actors. It is not greenwashing to get end dates for existing platforms and land donations of parcels with significant biological and economic merit. But, PXP does not control aforementioned lands, and only one of the platforms. And PXP does not control the flow of oil, nor the politico-economic outlook on the need for more oil and gas drilling at a future date. The federal Minerals Management Service has stated they are statutorily bound to extract every drop of oil from the lease, and deals between an oil company and their local representatives are not binding.
For this reason, this proposal was rejected twice by the State Lands Commission and twice by the legislature.
I see that you are hoping Governor Schwarzenegger's man in Santa Maria will be appointed to the SLC so you can slip this one past. But maybe true environmentalists such as yourselves should consider the wider implications, and the underhanded way you are being used.
We need to say NO today to Big Oil, NO tomorrow, and NO the next day. The fossil fuel supply must be shut down to make renewable alternative politically and economically feasible. The only end dates of existing leases are the value of the resource. We can outlast them. And along with the 100 statewide groups opposing this move, we will outlast you. Unless you want to join us, because in the end, we all want the same thing.
Jack Eidt
Wild Heritage Planners
Notes from Century Report –
http://www.collinscenter.org/members/blog_view.asp?id=548214
Amount of oil –
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) (within the U.S. Department of Interior) is the agency that conducts oil and gas resource assessments on state lands and in state submerged waters. Florida’s state submerged lands are included within two larger (USGS) assessment categories called provinces. Province 50 includes most of the peninsula and excludes the western portion of the Panhandle. Areas of Florida west of Apalachicola are included in Province 49, which extends into areas of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. The mean estimate for oil and gas in Florida’s Province 50 state submerged lands is approximately 236 million barrels of oil equivalents, approximately 110 million barrels of oil and 600 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
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It should also be noted that much of the area subject to the current state moratorium was under lease for approximately 50 years. Exploration and drilling rights for approximately 3.6 million acres covering state submerged lands extending 3 to 10.36 statute miles offshore from Apalachicola to south of Naples were controlled by the Coastal Petroleum Oil Company from the mid-1940s through the mid-1990s. Coastal drilled 22 test wells through 1983. Only one in the Florida Keys produced a "significant show.” None of these wells produced commercial quantities of oil, and after 1983 Coastal drilled no additional test wells despite the absence of restrictions on exploration through 1990. During this period no other companies asked to drill in state waters. Thus, for 50 years there was little, if any, evidence of industry behavior suggesting the presence of valuable oil and gas resources in Florida’s coastal waters.
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http://www.collinscenter.org/members/blog_view.asp?id=549593 -Oil spills can cause impacts from only a few days to multiple years or even decades. Florida’s coastline is especially sensitive to spills because of its mangrove forests, seagrass beds and coral reefs.
- Oil released into marine waters more than 100 miles off hte West Florida shore would probably become entrained in the Loop Current, which feeds back into the Gulf stream. Depending upon ability of emergency responders to contain the spill and/or the rate of oil degradation, such spills could pose some risk to coastal communities in the Florida Keys and on the east coast of Florida.
- Most of the oil spilled in conjunction with Katrina and Rita came from damaged landside facilities. Offshore spills (most of which are thought to have come from ruptured underwater pipelines) were estimated at 17,600 barrels
Waste - Offshore oil and gas activities can result in heavy metals and debris disturbing several acres around the wells. Discharged wastes can blanket the seabed around a borehole, and the turbidity caused during drilling can adversely affect sea life adjacent to the activity.
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