Saving Seafood

Offshore wind, oil on different tracks

June 29, 2023 — The two-pronged offshore energy sector appears to be playing off the real estate adage “location, location, location.”

For now, the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico is in the driver’s seat though prices have not reached the triple digit highs expected this summer because of the OPEC cartel’s April decision to cut production.

The picture is quite different in the Northeast, where the fledgling offshore wind market is sustaining heavy blows from inflation, infrastructure limitations and, more recently, judicial scrutiny. An unworkable cost imbalance has forced the temporary scrapping of at least one developing wind farm, while developers also must face something oil and gas operators have been all too familiar with over the years: lawsuits.

Concerns over energy security and affordability have of late overshadowed transition to offshore wind and other renewable energy sources. To point, in what is described as a “short-term course correction,” BP, which holds a 50% interest with partner Equinor in the Beacon Wind and Empire Wind offshore wind farms off New York, dialed back its widely proclaimed renewable investments in favor of capturing the exponentially higher returns from core oil and gas assets. “We plan to invest up to $8 billion more this decade in our transition growth engines and about $1 billion more each year in today’s energy system, which depends on oil and gas,” said CEO Bernard Looney.

Read the full article at WorkBoat

‘Massive numbers’: New Gulf oil spill study finds even deadlier impact on one of Florida’s most popular fish

November 29, 2022 — More than a decade after BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded into a lethal inferno that killed 11 and spilled more than 3 million barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers piecing together its lasting impacts have found more profound damage than previously known — to one of the Gulf’s most important fish.

Testing wild mahi mahi, the team found for the first time that even low amounts of oil can cut survival rates in half within a week of exposure. The fish also stopped spawning for at least a month.

“Those are massive numbers,” said Martin Grossell, lead principal investigator for one of 12 research groups funded by the BP’s Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative and a professor at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School.

The findings were first published in September in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

In previous experiments, Grossell’s lab confirmed low levels of oil can damage the hearts, hearing and vision of young lab-bred mahi, impairing their fitness. The field work, done over three weeks in the northern Gulf of Mexico, now confirms that damage can be deadly, he said.

“It will lead to mortality in the wild where fish have to compete for resources and avoid predation,” he said. “So it’s a tougher life out there than it is in the lab.”

For drilling opponents, these findings and others provide more evidence to end Gulf oil exploration. The Biden administration has proposed expanding it and is now taking public comment on a new lease.

Read the full article at WLRN

GO FISH Advocates for Louisiana’s Commercial Fishing Industry

June 20, 2022 — Louisiana is an economic ecosystem of wetlands, waterways and generations that work them. A place where the livelihoods of commercial fishermen, seafood processors and restaurateurs all intertwine. Linking them all—from Lake Pontchartrain to the Atchafalaya Basin to the Gulf Coast—is a life source.

“Everything is tied to the water,” said Tracy Kuhns, President of the GO FISH Coalition, formed after the BP oil spill in 2010 as an advocate for commercial fishing. “It’s  just part of your everyday life. The way you live.”

Industry Advocates

These days, fishing for a living can be harder than normal, as evidenced by storms that continue to ravage the industry and reverse fortunes. Businesses have yet to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm. The aftermath still scars the state.

Its destruction compounded earlier damage from hurricanes Laura, Delta and Zeta. Occurring in 2020 and 2021, those four storms caused $579 million in losses, according to Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries.

Seven months after Ida, Kuhns reflects on the long-term impact, noting “the economic base is the natural resources down here.” One needs the other intact to survive, to prosper.

“Captain Mike and his wife Tracie have passion and dedication to preserve the seafood heritage of the Barateria-Jean Lafitte area,” said Ewell Smith, a member of the Gulf Seafood Foundation and Louisiana Fishing Community Recovery Coalition.

Read the full story at the Gulf Seafood Foundation

 

BP Enters Offshore Wind Market With $1.1 Billion Equinor Deal. Why The Stock Is Falling.

September 11, 2020 — BP stock fell on Thursday, as the oil major entered the offshore wind market in a $1.1 billion deal with Norwegian energy giant Equinor.

The FTSE 100-listed company has agreed to buy 50% stakes in two of Equinor’s wind farm developments on the U.S. East Coast—the Empire Wind project in New York and the Beacon Wind farm in Massachusetts.

The two companies have also formed a strategic partnership to pursue further opportunities for offshore wind in the U.S.

The back story. In February—shortly after Bernard Looney became its chief executive—BP set out an action plan to become net zero on carbon by 2050. The company ramped up its strategy last month, saying it won’t explore in any new countries and announcing a tenfold increase in low-carbon investment to $5 billion a year by 2030.

Read the full story at MarketWatch

The Deepwater Horizon Disaster Fueled a Gulf Science Bonanza

April 23, 2020 — After the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded a decade ago this month, killing 11 workers and spewing a massive black curtain of crude oil across the Gulf of Mexico, thousands of first responders and cleanup workers arrived on the scene. So too did an army of scientists. Aboard seagoing research vessels and wading along beaches and marshes, they came to assess the catastrophe and track it over time. British Petroleum, owner of the rig, agreed to fund a scientific stimulus package of $500 million just a few weeks after the April 20, 2010, blowout.

The 134 million gallons of oil devastated wildlife from Texas to Florida, killing thousands of marine mammals, such as dolphins and sea turtles, according to federal officials, and destroying shoreline and underwater habitats for commercially important fish, crabs, shrimp, and oysters. More than 25,000 fishermen and seafood industry workers were suddenly out of work, with a 10-year price tag of $4.5 billion in total economic losses, according to a 2019 study by a trio of researchers funded in part by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Read the full story at Wired

10 years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, oil pollution found in thousands of fish, study says

April 21, 2020 — Oil pollution has been detected in thousands of fish in the Gulf of Mexico, including higher levels in popular seafood choices like yellowfin tuna, tilefish and red drum, according to a new study.

The research was carried out between 2011 and 2018, sampling more than 2,500 individual fish that belonged to 91 species living in 359 different locations in the Gulf. All of them contained oil exposure.

When the Deepwater Horizon explosion occurred 10 years ago, millions of gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico’s waters over 87 days. The BP oil spill became the largest accidental oil spill in US history.

After the explosion, researchers, like those at the University of South Florida, raced to study the spill and its environmental effects in real time.

Weeks later, BP made a 10-year, $500 million commitment to fund research. While the funding comes to a close this year, research done over the last 10 years is being released.

Read the full story at CNN

Nearly $226M to restore open Gulf after 2010 BP oil spill

December 16, 2019 — Federal agencies have approved nearly $226 million for 18 projects to restore open ocean and marine habitats that were decimated in the Gulf of Mexico by the 2010 BP oil spill.

The projects range from $52.6 million to study deep-sea habitats to $290,000 to find ways to keep sea turtles from swallowing or getting snagged on hooks or tangled in lines set out for miles along reefs.

They are described in a 490-page report released Tuesday.

The nonprofit Ocean Conservancy said it’s “the world’s first plan to restore the open ocean and deep-sea environment from a major oil disaster.”

“Ocean Conservancy welcomes this major conservation milestone for the Gulf of Mexico,” CEO Janis Searles Jones said in a news release.

The explosion April 20, 2010, on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig killed 11 workers. There are varying estimates on how much oil was released. According to Ocean Conservancy, the well spewed 210 million gallons (795 million liters) of oil before it was capped 87 days later.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

USD 226 million in Deepwater Horizon settlement funds to fund marine restoration projects in Gulf of Mexico

December 11, 2019 — Around USD 226 million (EUR 234.3 million) in funding from the Deepwater Horizon disaster settlement will be used to fund eighteen projects to restore the Gulf of Mexico’s marine environment.

Among the projects gaining funding as part of the Final Open Ocean Restoration Plan 2, which was formally announced on 10 December after a 6-month review period, is an effort to reduce fish and turtle bycatch in the Gulf’s shrimp fishery, which received more than USD 17 million (EUR 15.3 million) in funding, and programs to encourage greater adoption of devices to prevent barotrauma in fish caught by recreational anglers, which received USD 30 million (EUR 27.1 million).

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Restoration projects seek to fight “tragic” decline in Gulf of Mexico oyster population

November 19, 2018 — Last week, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources officially moved to cancel the state’s wild oyster season, which would have run from November through April.

Exploratory dives at oyster harvesting grounds had revealed a continued steep decline in the number of oysters in the state’s waters. Last year’s season was curtailed after fishermen harvested just 136 110-pound sacks of oysters, down from 7,000 sacks in 2013, according to the Associated Press.

Scott Bannon, director of the Marine Resources Division of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said the findings revealed the apparent collapse of the region’s oyster ecology.

“It’s tragic, to be honest,” Bannon told AL.com.

Numerous factors have dealt blows not just to Alabama’s oyster grounds, but those of the entire Gulf of Mexico. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, hurricanes, disease, and changes in freshwater flows to Gulf rivers and streams have collectively damaged the fishery to the point where up to 85 percent of the gulf’s original oyster reefs no longer remain intact.

According to a new report by The Nature Conservancy, “Oyster Restoration in the Gulf of Mexico,” this dramatic decline has damaged the stability and productivity of the Gulf’s estuaries and harmed coastal economies.

Seth Blitch, the director of coastal and marine conservation in Louisiana for The Nature Conservancy, told SeafoodSource the oyster habitat and the oyster fishery “is not in a particularly good place right now,” which could spell bigger problems for the region.

“Oysters, to me, are a great proxy to a lot of things,” he said. “If oysters are doing well, that’s a good indication of good water quality and of the health entire near-shore estuarine system. When oysters start to fail, that’s good indication there are larger issues at play.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ENVIRONMENTALISTS SUE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IN TAMPA OVER OFFSHORE DRILLING

June 22, 2018 — Earthjustice, on behalf of three conservation groups, sued the Trump administration Thursday (June 21) alleging that it failed to complete a legally required consultation about offshore drilling’s harms to threatened and endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico.

The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are required under the Endangered Species Act to complete a consultation with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on its oversight of oil and gas operations that could impact threatened and endangered species. The last time the agencies completed a consultation, called a biological opinion, was in 2007, three years before the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster which led to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, according to Earthjustice.

With the lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Tampa, the Gulf Restoration Network, Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity are challenging the agencies for unreasonably delaying completion of a new consultation and seeking a court order to compel them to complete it within three months. A new biological opinion likely would result in additional safeguards to prevent further harm to sea turtles, whales, and other threatened and endangered species from oil and gas operations in the Gulf.

Read the full story at the Tampa Bay Reporter