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GULF DISASTER: END OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING NOW
This website is updated regularly with new information as it becomes available.
HOW MUCH OIL WAS SPILLED? Surface oil slicks and sheens believed to be associated with the BP spill have affected thousands of square miles, with oil and tar reaching the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. In a desperate attempt to keep the visible surface slick in check, BP flooded the ocean’s surface and depths with nearly 2 million gallons of chemical “dispersants.” These chemicals can actually make oil more toxic to ocean life. Corexit, the brand used by BP, was even banned in the United Kingdom. These chemicals bind with oil droplets so that they become “dispersed” by currents. Scientists believe that BP’s excessive use of dispersants caused enormous underwater oil plumes in the Gulf, one of which was 22 miles long and six miles wide. Read more about dispersants and see the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s daily map of the spill. The BP oil spill threatens some of the most productive and fragile marine ecosystems in the United States. About 25 percent of the nation’s wetlands lie in the Mississippi River Delta, providing habitat for nesting seabirds and resting migratory birds. The Gulf itself is home to dozens of threatened and endangered species, as well as commercially important fish, crab and shrimp that provide much of the basis of the Gulf Coast economy. While the response to the oil spill largely focused on stopping oil from reaching shore, the offshore ecosystem — from plankton to dolphins — has suffered devastating impacts. Endangered sperm whales and dolphins were spotted passing through the oil slick — which has spoiled critical habitat for the federally protected piping plover on the Chandeleur Islands. Oiled gannets and brown pelicans were the first victims discovered by response teams; the goo permeated mangroves and has soaked birds and their eggs. Heavy oil also soaked the Queen Bess Island pelican rookery, a nesting site that has been essential to the recovery of the brown pelican population, and experts worry that the spill could set back the Louisiana state bird’s recovery from near-extinction. The timing of the spill could not have been worse. Imperiled species including the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, loggerhead sea turtles, piping plovers and sperm whales were flocking to the Gulf to spawn, migrate and feed just as the spill happened. For many of them, there was nowhere else to go. And in a disturbing development, large numbers of sharks, fish and other marine animals were seen gathered in shallow inshore waters, believed to be seeking areas where oxygen hasn’t been depleted by oil and the microbes that eat it. Marine animals can die when oxygen levels in the water drop below two parts per million — which was observed even in some inshore areas. Moreover, creatures congregating near the shore risk getting trapped between shore and the oil and depleting oxygen levels in even these refuge areas. During spill-response efforts, concern arose that sea turtles were in oiled sargassum mats that were lit afire to burn off the oil. During the week of June 28, the Center initiated litigation on multiple fronts to prevent the injury and death of sea turtles during controlled burn operations, which resulted in requirements for observers to rescue sea turtles from this unnecessary and brutal threat. Read more. Read more about threatened species and see our July 23 map of the spill and nearby critical habitat. 1. The Bush administration. The oil-drilling lease was sold to BP by the George W. Bush administration in 2007 under its 2007-2012 Five-Year Offshore Oil Drilling Plan. 2. The Obama administration. The actual exploratory drilling was approved by the Obama administration on April 6, 2009. Within days of the 2009 approval, the Center and our allies won a court order vacating the Bush Five-Year Offshore Drilling Plan. Rather than use the court order as a timeout on new offshore oil drilling to develop a new plan, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar filed a special motion with the court to exempt approved oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. He specifically identified BP’s operation as one that should be released from the vacature. In July 2009, the court agreed to Salazar’s request, releasing all approved offshore oil drilling — including the BP operation — from the vacature. 3. BP. BP has the worst environmental and safety record of any oil company operating in America. Even after the 2005 Texas City Refinery blast that killed 15 people, BP has continued to rack up safety violations. Despite the dangerous nature of all offshore oil drilling and BP’s own egregious safety record, the company’s exploration plan downplayed the possibility of a spill, repeatedly asserting that it was unlikely or virtually impossible. Amazingly, Secretary Salazar’s Minerals and Management Service approved BP’s exploration plan without any consideration of the environmental consequences of an oil spill. 4. The oil industry and its political backers. The Gulf crisis shows that the glib safety claims of the oil industry cannot be trusted. There’s no way to guarantee that a massive oil rupture will not occur. And if one does occur, there’s no way to contain it quickly and fully enough to avert unacceptable environmental damage. Ultimately, it’s the inherently dangerous nature of offshore oil drilling that led to this disaster. That’s why the Center is calling on the Obama administration to 1) revoke its 2010 decision to open up Alaska, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast to offshore oil drilling; 2) revoke all leases to drill off Alaska, including those held by Shell Oil; 3) not permit any new offshore drilling anywhere; and 3) transition the nation away from fossil fuel so the pressure to continue offshore oil drilling dissipates. WHAT IF A SPILL OCCURS IN THE ARCTIC? The Gulf of Mexico has by far the largest, best-equipped, most experienced oil spill-containment system in the nation. It has hundreds of experienced volunteer fishing boats at its disposal. The water is warm year round and relatively calm except in hurricane season. Wildlife rehab and cleanup crews have access to a road system in close proximity to much of the shoreline. Yet with all these advantages, the government and the oil industry were unable to contain the spill. Imagine what would happen if a similar spill occurred in the Arctic — 140 miles from land. In subzero temperatures. With miles of sea ice to hack through, ship-killing icebergs in all directions, and darkness for 20 hours a day in the winter. It would be a disaster many magnitudes worse than what we’re suffering in the Gulf of Mexico. In a huge victory for the Arctic, on May 27 President Obama announced he wouldn’t allow Shell Oil to conduct exploration drilling in Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas this summer — but we don’t know what will happen next year. In fact, Obama has proposed opening up both the Chukchi and Beaufort seas to additional offshore oil drilling in coming years. And BP continues to pursue high-risk drilling plans in the Beaufort Sea: Its “Liberty” project is exempted from the Alaska offshore moratorium, as reported in the June 24 edition of The New York Times, due to the fact that the rig, which lies three miles offshore, is built onto an artificial island and thus classified as “onshore.” Yes — as long as offshore oil drilling exists. We can and should improve spill-prevention technology, but no technology will ever be 100-percent effective. The oil industry, Department of the Interior, and oil-state politicians told us for years that oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico was completely safe. BP refused to even consider the effects of a catastrophic leak in its drilling plan because it said the likelihood was too remote to imagine. The Department of the Interior agreed, approving the plan without even conducting an environmental review. They were all wrong. If we drill for oil offshore, we will suffer oil leaks. Many will be small, some big, and occasionally, one will be catastrophically large, like the one in the Gulf. HOW OFTEN DO OIL SPILLS OCCUR? Oil spills happen every single year. Large spills happen every few years, from the 1969 offshore oil-platform catastrophe that dumped 3 million gallons of oil into the Santa Barbara Channel to the April 6, 2010 spilling of 18,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico’s Delta National Wildlife Refuge — from a ruptured BP pipeline — to the current cataclysmic spill. It’s easy to feel helpless about the impacts of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. At the same time, this is our opportunity to stop offshore oil drilling once and for all. You can get involved to save the Gulf, the Arctic, the global climate, and the oceans and all their inhabitants — learn how to take action now and get up-to-the-minute info on the Center’s Twitter page. |
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