Saving Seafood

Report finds ‘alarming unaddressed deficiencies’ in US offshore oil drilling

April 18, 2019 — Even as the Trump administration has taken steps to expand offshore oil drilling, a new report shows that thousands of oil spills are still happening and that workers in the oil and gas industry are still dying on the job.

The report comes from Oceana, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to protecting and restoring the oceans, which has sued the federal government to stop seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean. The blasting is the first step needed to allow offshore drilling, when seismic airguns are used to find oil and gas deep under the ocean. Every state along the Atlantic coast has opposed the blasting, worried that spills could hurt tourism and local fisheries. Some scientists say the testing could also hurt marine life, including the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale. The group tied its report, released Thursday, to the ninth anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill to show what has been happening since the government promised to hold the industry accountable to higher safety standards.

Read the full story at CNN

Lawsuit filed over Trump plans for offshore drilling tests

December 12, 2018 — Environmental groups sued the Trump administration Tuesday over offshore drilling tests, launching a legal fight against a proposal that has drawn bipartisan opposition along the Atlantic Coast.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Charleston, South Carolina, claims the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it issued five permits for the use of seismic air guns.

“This action is unlawful and we’re going to stop it,” Diane Hoskins, campaign director at OCEANA, said in a news release. “The Trump administration’s rash decision to harm marine mammals hundreds of thousands of times in the hope of finding oil and gas is shortsighted and dangerous.”

The coalition includes OCEANA, the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, Center for Biological Diversity, Surfrider Foundation, Defenders of Wildlife, One Hundred Miles and the Sierra Club, as well as the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League and the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

The blasts are conducted in preparation for potential offshore drilling, which the administration has proposed to expand from the Atlantic to the Arctic and Pacific oceans. The five-year plan would open 90 percent of the nation’s offshore reserves to private development.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

Virginia conservationists blast approval of seismic testing for oil, gas in Atlantic

December 4, 2018 — Virginia conservationists are blasting the Trump administration’s decision to reverse course and approve seismic air gun surveys along the Atlantic coast to search for buried oil and gas reserves.

The groups cite widespread public opposition to seismic blasting and offshore drilling, as well as the harm posed to marine life and coastal economies that rely on healthy waters and wetlands.

“This action flies in the face of massive opposition to offshore drilling and exploration from over 90 percent of coastal municipalities in the proposed blast zone,” said Diane Hoskins, campaign director at the D.C.-based advocacy group Oceana. “President (Donald) Trump is essentially giving these companies permission to harass, harm and possibly even kill marine life.”

“Offshore drilling in our region would pose far too many risks to the health of coastal waters and the Chesapeake Bay, fishing, aquaculture, tourism and all jobs that depend on clean water,” said Lisa Feldt, vice president for environmental protection and restoration at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “We need to run away from offshore drilling, not move towards it.”

Read the full story at the Daily Press

Report suggests offshore drilling is a ‘bad deal’ for Florida

March 9, 2018 — Oil drilling along Florida’s coast could put at risk almost 610,000 jobs and $37.4 billion in economic activity, according to a new report by an ocean advocacy group.

Nationally, the nonprofit Oceana’s new economic analysis found that the Trump administration’s offshore drilling plan would threaten more than 2.6 million jobs and almost $180 billion in Gross Domestic Product for only two years’-worth of oil and just over one year’s-worth of gas at current consumption rates.

“From ocean views scattered with drilling platforms, to the industrialization of our coastal communities, to the unacceptable risk of more BP Deepwater Horizon-like disasters — expanding offshore drilling to new areas threatens thriving coastal economies and booming industries like tourism, recreation and fishing that rely on oil-free beaches and healthy oceans,” Diane Hoskins, campaign director at Oceana, said in a statement. “Coastal communities and states are outraged by this radical plan that threatens to destroy our clean coast economies.”

Oil industry officials disputed the findings, saying their industry has operated safely alongside commercial fishing, tourism and other industries for decades.

Oceana’s report was based on the most recent available data for ocean-dependent jobs and revenue from tourism, fishing and recreation in Atlantic and Pacific coastal states, as well as Florida’s Gulf coast, and compares them to the “undiscovered economically recoverable oil and gas reserves in those states.”

Read the full story at Florida Today

 

South Carolina: Gov. McMaster makes official request for South Carolina oil drilling exemption

January 17, 2018 — South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has formally requested that federal officials take South Carolina off the list for oil and natural gas leases in the Atlantic Ocean.

This is after U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke unilaterally removed Florida from the 2019-2024 proposed plan for offshore drilling following a brief meeting with Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Jan. 9.

Zinke had announced on Jan. 4 that the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had opened 98 percent of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources in federal offshore areas available to consider for future exploration and development. Zinke said Florida is exempt because it is “unique and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver.”

On Jan. 10, McMaster stated during a press conference: “I am opposed to offshore drilling off the South Carolina shore. I am opposed to seismic testing off the South Carolina shore. Our tourism industry and our glorious natural resources particularly in the Lowcountry are beyond compare in the United States. They are the source of enormous economic growth and prosperity and we can’t take a chance with those resources, those industries and that economy. It’s just too important.”

On that same day, McMaster officially made the request to Zinke’s office for a meeting to discuss removing South Carolina from the list. McMaster did not respond to questions from the Georgetown Times concerning the request.

Members of a grassroots group called Stop Oil Drilling in the Atlantic, or SODA, based in Pawleys Island say they are excited about McMaster’s request. They are urging the public to contact McMaster and other U.S. elected officials to express their support for removing South Carolina from the list.

“We trust that the will of the people most impacted by this public decision will be taken very seriously and heard,” said SODA leader Rev. Jim Watkins. “That is why it is really important to get behind the governor and thank him and and urge him on.”

He also said, “I hope that the state legislature and public officials all across the state will have a united front to help us get removed from the plan. I think that the governor’s action should be a rallying point for not only public officials but everyone.”

Watkins stressed that the issue is not a partisan issue and drilling for oil and natural gas is opposed by many Republicans and Democrats. Governors of both parties from most East Coast states are opposed to offshore drilling, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Jew Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida, according to the Associated Press.

Read the full story at South Strand News

 

Trump proposes massive expansion of offshore drilling

January 4, 2018 — The Trump administration is proposing to greatly expand the areas available for offshore oil and natural gas drilling, including off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

In the first major step toward the administration’s promised expansion of offshore drilling, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said nearly all of the nation’s outer continental shelf is being considered for drilling, including areas off the coasts of Maine, California, Florida and Alaska.

The proposal, which environmentalists immediately panned as an environmental disaster and giveaway to the fossil fuel industry, is far larger than what was envisioned in President Trump’s executive order last year seeking a new plan for the future of auctions of offshore drilling rights. That order asked Zinke to consider drilling expansions in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

“This is a start on looking at American energy dominance and looking at our offshore assets and beginning a dialogue of when, how, where and how fast those offshore assets should be, or could be, developed,” Zinke told reporters Thursday.

Read the full story at The Hill