Saving Seafood

Offshore drilling backers, opponents ready for North Carolina battle

August 8, 2017 — RALEIGH, N.C. — Federal regulators again want to hear what North Carolinians think about allowing oil and gas drilling off the state’s coast.

Last year, former President Barack Obama’s administration adopted a five-year energy plan that excluded drilling off the East Coast. But President Donald Trump has said he wants to see more offshore energy development, so his administration has tossed aside the 2016 plan and is starting over.

As part of that process, a public hearing was held Monday night in Wilmington, and others are set for Morehead City on Wednesday and Manteo on Thursday.

Gov. Roy Cooper said last month that he’s opposed to opening the coast to offshore exploration and drilling, saying he doesn’t think the risk to the state’s coastal tourism and commercial fishing industries of a major oil spill are worth the limited revenue North Carolina would receive from the move.

Read the full story at WRAL

Australia Seeks to Extend Commercial Fishing in Protected Waters

July 21, 2017 — Australia plans to allow fishing across 80 percent of its protected maritime sanctuaries, the government said on Friday in a proposal that would vastly extend commercial activity in the world’s largest marine-reserves network.

If the plan, backed by the government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, is approved by Parliament, it would be the first time a nation has scaled back its regulations in protected maritime areas. The move could potentially set a precedent for other countries, including the United States, which are considering similar reversals.

More than one-third of Australia’s waters — home to endangered species of sharks, turtles and whales — are protected by law.

Under the government’s proposal, “the boundaries of Australian Marine Parks will not change,” Josh Frydenberg, the environment minister, said in a statement. Instead, he said, the country would increase “the total area of the reserves open to fishing from 64 percent to 80 percent.”

Much of the increased fishing would take place in the Coral Sea Reserve, one of the country’s most stringently protected areas, where large-scale operations would be allowed for first time in at least five years. Most fishing is now prohibited in the park, off the continent’s northeast coast, by a so-called no-take zone.

Read the full story at the New York Times

Sen. Cantwell Statement on House Budget Proposal to Open Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to Oil Drilling

July 19, 2017 — The following was released by the Office of Senator Marie Cantwell (D-WA):

Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) responded to the House Republicans’ inclusion of provisions in their budget proposal for the coming year that would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Cantwell released the following statement:

“I am disappointed, but not surprised, that the House Republican budget includes a proposal to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  We have seen this story before — every Republican Administration and every Republican-majority Congress has tried to turn over this iconic national wildlife refuge to the oil and gas industry. Fortunately, all previous proposals to destroy this pristine arctic ecosystem for the benefit of oil and gas companies have failed.  We need to protect the Arctic Refuge, not raid it for oil.

“If House Republicans insist on passing a partisan budget that includes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, I will do everything I can to ensure it meets the same fate in the Senate as their failed health care bill.”

Throughout her career in the Senate, Cantwell has been a leader in protecting the refuge from oil exploration and drilling. Since entering the Senate in 2001, she has cosponsored legislation multiple times to permanently protect the Arctic Refuge coastal plain as a wilderness area. In December of 2005, Cantwell led a historic filibuster that reversed a backdoor maneuver in the Senate to allow Wildlife Refuge drilling. In 2013, Cantwell and Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) introduced legislation that would have designated 1.56 million acres of land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness.

Oil impairs ability of coral reef fish to find homes and evade predators

July 18, 2017 — Just as one too many cocktails can lead a person to make bad choices, a few drops of oil can cause coral reef fish to make poor decisions, according to a paper published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution. A team of fisheries biologists led by Jacob Johansen and Andrew Esbaugh of The University of Texas Marine Science Institute have discovered that oil impacts the higher-order thinking of coral reef fish in a way that could prove dangerous for them—and for the coral reefs where they make their home.

Examining six different species of , Johansen and the team found that exposure to oil consistently affected behavior in ways that put the  at risk.

During several weeks when coral  fish go through their juvenile stages of development, they are especially vulnerable. Even in healthy populations of reef fish, typically less than 10 percent of embryos and larvae reach adulthood. Those who survive must learn to identify friend from foe and adopt protective behaviors, such as traveling in groups, minimizing movement in open waters and swimming away quickly from danger.

In experiments, the scientists found that juvenile fish exposed to oil struggled on all these counts.

“In several different experiments, the fish exposed to oil exhibited very risky behavior, even in the presence of a predator,” said Esbaugh, an assistant professor of .

The scientists also found that oil exposure negatively affected the fishes’ growth, survival and settlement behaviors (their ability to find a suitable habitat).

Oil concentrations are found in oceans worldwide, but until now little has been known about the impact of oil exposure on coral reef fish. Earlier research that explored how oil affects the physiology of fishes has demonstrated developmental heart deformities and associated cardiac functions, but this is the first study to demonstrate that oil exposure affects behavior in a way that increases predation and reduces settlement success.

Read the full story at Phys.org

Feds extend comment period on seismic testing in the Atlantic

July 5, 2017 — The public is being given 15 more days to comment on applications by five companies to do seismic airgun surveys for oil and natural gas deposits in the Atlantic Ocean.

The National Marine Fisheries Service on Wednesday announced the extension of the comment period to July 21.

Five Houston-based survey companies are seeking “incidental harassment authorizations” that allow them to disturb or harm marine mammals during the course of their airgun surveys.

The applications had been denied by President Barack Obama’s administration, but were revived under President Donald Trump, who has said he favors oil and gas exploration along the Atlantic Coast.

Last week, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced that federal officials have begun the process of developing a new five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program. Initial public comments on the 2019-2024 plan also are being taken.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

The Bipartisan Fight for Quieter Oceans

July 5, 2017 — Last night, to celebrate the fourth of July, the air over the U.S. filled with fireworks. The noise they created was extremely loud and, mercifully, brief. But imagine having to listen to even louder explosions once every ten seconds, for days or weeks on end. Starting this fall, that may be the new reality for whales, fish, and other marine life off the eastern seaboard, if the Trump administration’s plans go ahead.

Following the president’s executive order to open the Atlantic to offshore drilling, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is set to permit five companies to begin seismic airgun blasting—an old but controversial technique for detecting reserves of oil and gas. Ships will tow an array of 24 to 36 cannons behind them along with streamers of underwater microphones. The cannons create explosions by releasing pressurized gas, while the microphones detect the echoes of these detonations to pinpoint petroleum deposits beneath the ocean floor.

Each airgun produces up to 180 decibels of noise, making them around 1,000 times louder than nearby fireworks. And each will go off five or six times a minute, for months at a time, from the back of slow-moving ships that crisscross 90,000 kilometres of Atlantic waters from New Jersey to Florida. There is clear evidence that noise of this magnitude kills or perturbs marine life at every scale—from titanic whales to tiny plankton. It “poses an unacceptable risk of serious harm to marine life… the full extent of which will not be understood until long after the harm occurs,” said a group of 75 marine scientists in 2015.

Read the full story at The Atlantic

NE Florida Republican Congressman Helping Lead Bipartisan Effort Against Atlantic Seismic Testing

June 29, 2017 — Northeast Florida Republican Congressman John Rutherford is helping lead a bipartisan effort against seismic airgun testing in the Atlantic Ocean, which could lead to drilling for oil and gas.

Rutherford said the blasting could hurt coastal businesses relying on healthy oceans.

Seismic testing is a way of finding oil and natural gas beneath the ocean floor with loud blasts of air. If the oil is there, drilling to retrieve it is the next step.

The Trump administration is reviewing applications by five energy companies who want to explore oil in the Atlantic. But Rutherford and more than 100 other members of Congress signed a letter sent to the secretary of interior against the blasting.

Rutherford said in an email, airgun testing poses a threat to coastal economies, like North Florida fisheries.

“While future offshore drilling activities in the Atlantic would put our communities at risk down the road, seismic testing threatens our fragile coastal economies today,” he said. “Our coastal economy should not be put at undue risk at a time when our booming oil and gas production is more than enough to meet our current energy needs.”

Environmental group Oceana, which opposes the testing, is applauding the letter. The group argues seismic testing could displace fish stocks, decrease catch rates, and disturb whale breeding.

Read the full story at WJCT

Fishery Group Comes Out Against Seismic Surveys

June 23, 2017 — The New England Fishery Management Council is asking the Trump Administration to slow its push for offshore oil and gas developments on the East Coast.

An Executive Order signed in April urges oil exploration in the mid and south Atlantic. Currently, five companies are seeking permits to conduct what are called seismic surveys in these areas.

Those surveys fire powerful sound waves into the ocean floor. Then, surveyors listen to the echoes to detect oil reserves.

Scientists increasingly worry those sound waves disturb whales and fish. A study published this Wednesday in the journal Nature says the surveys kill off zooplankton, a cornerstone of the ocean food chain.

Thomas Nies is Executive Director of the New England Fishery Management Council. His organization has spoken out about the surveys, because of concerns they’ll affect fisheries here. “We’re concerned about seismic surveys. The council isn’t convinced that we have enough information on what their impacts are across a wide range of species.”

Read the full story at NHPR

LoBiondo, NJ officials blast Trump’s offshore drilling proposal

June 19, 2017 — U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd, called a move by the Trump administration to conduct seismic testing in the Atlantic Ocean “barbaric” and “insane” during a press conference Monday.

Seismic air guns are used to find gas and oil pockets deep beneath the ocean floor. President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order in April aimed at expanding offshore drilling near the East Coast, and, earlier this month, five companies applied to conduct seismic testing — including in an area just south of Cape May.

Environmentalists, local politicians and tourism officials gathered Monday afternoon near the 30th Street beach in Avalon to signal their opposition to seismic testing and offshore drilling.

“We in Cape May County have a $6.3 billion tourism business,” Cape May County Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton said. “Now I want you to imagine an oil spill out there today, with this wind blowing on the beach.

“We can’t afford that, ladies and gentlemen,” he added.

During seismic testing, air is blasted into the ocean floor every 10 seconds for an extended period of time. LoBiondo said he attended an air-gun demonstration last year.

“The decibel level for this seismic air gun is up to 250 decibels.” LoBiondo said. “That would blow a human ear out.”

Industry groups say seismic surveys have been conducted in the United States and around the world for decades, with little adverse impacts. The National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, the agency seeking the seismic testing permits, has said that air-gun operations would include measures to monitor and mitigate any harm to marine mammals.

Read the full story at The Press of Atlantic City

NJBIZ: We must fight any plan to drill off the Jersey Shore

June 11, 2017 — Drilling for oil and natural gas off the coast of New Jersey is a bad idea that never goes away.

Former President Barack Obama was for it — before, at the very end of his term, he signed an executive order reinstating a moratorium on offshore drilling from Massachusetts to Virginia. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order of his own to reopen the possibility of drilling off the East Coast. And then, last week, the Trump administration announced plans to issue five permits for offshore seismic testing from the Delaware-New Jersey border to Florida. The tests, which involve loud blasts that critics say harm whales and other sea creatures, are a first step to oil exploration.

(The National Marine Fisheries Service is seeking public comment on the proposal until July 7.)

And that’s only the recent history of this perennial issue. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, oil companies actually drilled exploratory wells off Atlantic City. They didn’t find significant enough deposits to continue the effort.

But here we are again.

New Jersey’s two U.S. senators and House members from coastal districts are opposing the latest push for offshore drilling, just as they have done every time this issue has bubbled to the surface, no matter their party. And the argument — a good one — against offshore drilling is always the same: Why endanger the state’s $44 billion-a-year tourism industry and the 500,000 jobs it supports? Half of that revenue is generated from counties along the coast. Offshore drilling could also threaten the state’s $7.9 billion-a-year fishing industry and the 50,000 jobs it creates.

The fear, of course, is that a spill off the state’s coast could blacken New Jersey beaches with oil. Furthermore, oil spills from drilling off states to the north and south of New Jersey could also end up drifting onto the state’s beaches.

Massive oil spills can cause catastrophic damage. The Gulf of Mexico still has not recovered, and may never recover, from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. Once pictures of oil-coated wildlife fade from the news, the spills are largely forgotten by the general public — but not in the region where the spills occur, where the damage is lasting.

Read the full editorial at NJBIZ