Photo courtesty of Leon Steber

Richard Charter
Senior Policy Advisor, Marine Programs
Defenders of Wildlife

Right now, roughly 5,000 barrels of oil a day are being spilled into the Gulf of Mexico southeast of Venice, Louisiana [1] – yet another awful outcome of the tragic explosion at what was supposed to be one of the safest and most advanced offshore drilling rigs in the world.

Help close the door on another drilling disaster. Urge the Obama administration to reject expanded offshore drilling exploration.

Delicate marine ecosystems – and the dolphins, sea turtles and other wildlife that need them to survive – are at risk. Local fisherman fear for their businesses, as an oil slick twice the size of Maryland nears the ecologically fragile Louisiana coastline. [2] 

The situation is so desperate that yesterday the U.S. Coast Guard lit contaminated portions of the Gulf on fire in a desperate attempt to eliminate the spill before it reaches the coast. [3]

And as the tragedy unfolds, officials in the Obama administration are considering a proposal that could dramatically expand offshore drilling – and bring the threat of another tragedy like the one now unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico to your favorite beach.

Tell the Obama administration to reject Big Oil’s plans to industrialize our coasts. Submit your comments now.

Comments on the administration’s offshore drilling proposal are due Monday (May 3rd), so please send your message to federal officials right now!

It doesn’t take a dramatic explosion and monster oil slick to see the perils of offshore drilling. For some marine wildlife, the simple act of determining whether and where to site an offshore rig can be a prelude to disaster.

Seismic surveys conducted during oil and gas exploration potentially can cause temporary or permanent hearing loss, induce behavioral changes and even physically injure marine mammals like bottlenose dolphins found along the Gulf coastline and bowhead whales in the waters of Alaska’s Chukchi Sea.

Protect whales and dolphins from risky offshore drilling schemes. Say “No!” to more destructive oil and gas exploration off our coasts.

Exposure to petroleum also causes tissue damage in the eyes, mouth, skin and lungs of dolphins and other marine mammals. And because they are at the top of the food chain, marine mammals like polar bears and whales will be exposed to the dangers of bioaccumulation of organic pollutants and metals.

For the threatened and endangered sea turtles found along the Gulf Coast, expanded oil drilling could mean the difference between survival and extinction.
Dredging of nesting beaches, collisions and noise disruptions threaten sea turtles. And hatchlings are particularly susceptible to oiling because they spend much of their time near the water surface, where spilled oil or tar accumulates.

Take action now to protect sea turtles, whales, dolphins and our coasts. Send your message to the Obama administration now.

For the Wild Ones,

Richard Charter
Senior Policy Advisor, Marine Programs
Defenders of Wildlife

Over the last three weeks, Defenders of Wildlife has mobilized hundreds of activists to attend public hearings on the proposal to expand harmful exploration for oil and gas deposits off U.S. Coasts.

Defenders from Texas, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and New Jersey packed local hearings to testify on the dangers of industrializing our coasts and act as a voice for the whales, sea turtles, dolphins, shorebirds and other wildlife threatened by plans line our coasts with new offshore drilling rigs.
Notes

[1] http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g5gnWbqZ9SqBHvSYqJeE2AT5KebwD9FCN2100

[2] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/29/bloomberg1376-L1N0ET1A74E9-6.DTL

[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/29/AR2010042901244.html?hpid=topnews

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The Minerals Management Service (MMS) will hold two public hearings in Newark to take comment on the environmental impact statement for geologic exploration in the ocean, the first step towards off-shore oil drilling. MMS will also be identifying the potential for carbon sequestration. Let your opposition to geologic ocean exploration for the purpose of off-shore oil drilling be known – attend one of these hearings and help protect our oceans and beaches.

When: April 27th; 1st meeting begins at 1 p.m., 2nd meeting begins at 7 p.m.

Where: Sheraton Newark Airport Hotel, 128 Frontage Road, Newark

PRESS RELEASE
Date: April 01, 2010

MMS schedules Public Meetings on Atlantic Geological & Geophysical Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement

Public to Comment on Scope of Environmental Study and Suggest Issues for Analysis

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) has scheduled 13 public scoping meetings in seven locations to solicit comments for the development of a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) for future geological and geophysical exploration (G&G) in the Mid- and South-Atlantic OCS.

It has been more than 25 years since G&G studies were conducted off the Atlantic coast. This data will enhance, update, and supplement information to support future MMS planning decisions for both renewable and conventional energy development on the OCS. 

Public scoping meetings have been scheduled from April 20, 2010, through April 29, 2010, in Houston, TX; Jacksonville, FL; Savannah, GA; Newark, NJ; Charleston, SC; Wilmington, NC; Norfolk, VA. A schedule of meeting dates, times, and locations will be posted on MMS’s web site at www.mms.gov.

In January 2009, MMS issued a Notice of Intent to Prepare the PEIS which included a 60-day comment period.  However, because the scoping meetings could not take place within those 60 days, the comment period has been reopened to allow the scoping meetings to take place.

The Notice of the Re-opening of the Comment Period and the Public Scoping Meetings will publish in the Federal Register on April 2, 2010.  The comment period and the public meetings are part of the scoping process through which other Federal, State, and local governments as well as any interested parties have the opportunity to assist MMS in identifying significant issues and alternatives for analysis in the PEIS.  

The PEIS will evaluate potential environmental impacts of multiple G&G activities on the Mid- and South-Atlantic OCS.  These activities include, but are not limited to, seismic surveys, sidescan-sonar surveys, electromagnetic surveys, geological and geochemical sampling, and remote sensing.  This PEIS will also review advances in G&G technology and improved knowledge of acoustic impacts on marine life. 

Findings from this PEIS will assist in determining whether significant impacts to Atlantic resources could occur as a result of G&G activities, and will aid in outlining any necessary mitigation and monitoring measures that will reduce or eliminate the potential for impacts to the environment. 

The MMS has the authority under the OCS Lands Act to issue permits for offshore G&G activities and has received multiple applications for such permits. In the conference report that accompanied the 2010 Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, Congress directed the MMS to complete a PEIS to study the effects of G&G activities in the Atlantic OCS.
 

News Media Contact:
    MMS Public Affairs-Gulf

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In the early 1960s, Rachel Carson wrote “Silent Spring,” an important book that helped increase public concern for the environment. The work was most directly about the dangers and effects of irresponsible, uninformed pesticide use. Carson’s broader message — the one that resonated with the public around the world — was about the failure to take care of the environment with which humanity has been entrusted.

Carson painted a picture of a silent spring — devoid of the beauty of bird songs because of society’s widespread use of deadly pesticides. The moral of her story had many layers: about humanity’s responsibility to care for the Earth and its resources; about the duty to be informed about our choices; and about the consequences of putting short-term, profit-driven desires ahead of our obligations to future generations.A parallel story to Carson’s cautionary tale is being played out today along the shores of the Delaware Bay. The horseshoe crab, a creature more than 350 million years old, is the trademark inhabitant of Delaware Bay; the bay is the epicenter of the horseshoe crab population. This ancient mariner is a keystone creature for the estuary. Many other animals thrive because of its presence. It is the foundation of a globally unique ecological relationship with migratory shorebirds.

The Delaware Bay is one of four major shorebird migration stopovers in the world. Just a decade ago, more than 1.5 million birds congregated on the bay shores. One of these birds, the red knot, makes an incredible 10,000-mile journey from its winter home at the tip of South America to the Arctic. This shorebird depends almost exclusively on horseshoe crab eggs to complete its migration. The horseshoe crab obligingly lays its eggs on the bayshore beaches at the time of the birds’ arrival.

The red knot population visiting the Delaware Bay has been steadily declining since the 1990s. In the 1980s, they numbered more than 150,000. In 2004, there were a mere 13,315. This rapid decline is due to a shortage in their food supply, resulting from excessive and unrestricted harvesting of the horseshoe crabs for fishing bait. At this rapid rate of decline, leading shorebird experts believe the red knot will be extinct by 2010 without immediate action to protect the horseshoe crab, also on a course of decline due to the overfishing.

While a series of steps has been taken over recent years to address this ecological crisis, state and federal decision-makers, including state Environmental Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell, have stopped short of fully protecting the horseshoe crabs and migratory shorebirds. Only by taking the definitive step of enacting an ongoing moratorium on the harvest of horseshoe crabs until science tells us that both species are recovered can we secure their future.

State and federal officials have failed to take this action because they have put the short-term, profit-driven desires of a small number of part-time, commercial crab harvesters ahead of their obligation to protect the horseshoe crab and red knot. When the overharvesting results in a silent spring along the Delaware Bay, the commercial operators will simply move on to another target, oblivious to the lesson Carson tried to impart and leaving the rest of us with a life diminished by the absence of these intrepid travelers.

Acting Gov. Codey and Campbell have an opportunity to fully protect one of the irreplaceable natural resources of the Delaware Bay by enacting a full moratorium on horseshoe crab harvesting. Money can compensate fishermen for lost revenue — an action supported by the American Littoral Society and other environmental groups. Only a strong public demand for Codey and Campbell to take this action will make it happen. Once the ancient horseshoe crab and intrepid red knot are gone, no amount of money can bring them back. Extinction is forever.

By Timothy P. Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society, a coastal conservation group based in Highlands.

Asbury Park Press – June 22, 2005

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Using electronic tags and satellites to track Atlantic bluefin tuna, scientists have found that the prized fish crisscross the North Atlantic as they move from feeding to breeding grounds, snarling efforts to rebuild their stocks after decades of overfishing.
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For some 20 years, Atlantic bluefin have been hauled out of the sea at unsustainable rates, marine scientists say, despite international attempts to limit the catch by establishing separate fishing quotas for the eastern and western Atlantic. Now, fresh research on bluefin migration suggests that unless governments change their view of bluefin stocks and begin to treat them as one population, overfishing – particularly on the European side of the Atlantic – could torpedo the North Atlantic bluefin.
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A mile beneath the Atlantic, hundreds of miles off New Jersey’s shores, lies a canyon that could hold all sorts of sea monsters or miracles, along with the scars of human pollution or the seeds of a new energy boom.
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Consumers’ taste for seafood is depleting fish stocks, endangering species, and putting fishermen and environmentalists on a collision course.
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Efforts to create no-fishing zones off the South Florida coast have been dealt severe setbacks because of opposition from commercial fishing interests. The commercial fishermen certainly have a legitimate concern about continuing their livelihoods. But if implemented wisely, no-fishing zones could actually help the commercial fishing industry by providing fish species with the protection they need to replenish themselves.
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You can help save fragile marine ecosystems within the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. Tell the California Fish & Game Commission to put in place the adequate protection needed to sustain healthy populations of marine life.
American Oceans Campaign – 8/15/2001

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The white-bearded geologist is on a one-man crusade to educate people about the coast and the ocean and how they interact. His simple but blunt message for homeowners, developers and government planners is twofold:

– Tamper with the coast at your own peril.

– Living right on its edge often begs catastrophe.

“I don’t believe there are natural hazards, just natural processes and conditions,” Lajoie said. “We create hazards when we get in the way of those natural processes and conditions.”
San Frnacisco chronicle – 8/14/2001

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The white-bearded geologist is on a one-man crusade to educate people about the coast and the ocean and how they interact. His simple but blunt message for homeowners, developers and government planners is twofold:

– Tamper with the coast at your own peril.

– Living right on its edge often begs catastrophe.

“I don’t believe there are natural hazards, just natural processes and conditions,” Lajoie said. “We create hazards when we get in the way of those natural processes and conditions.”
San Frnacisco chronicle – 8/14/2001

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Looking at the state of our oceans today, it’s hard to imagine what they were like just a few hundred years ago. Back then, the seas literally teemed with life. Herds of tens of thousands of dugongs (sea cows) grazed off the coast of Australia. Oyster reefs grew so large that they were a hazard for ship navigation. And huge sea turtles numbering in the tens of millions flourished in the Caribbean.

David Suzuki, Science Matters – 8/10/2001

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Aloha, Protection for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is at risk of being weakened by the Secretary of Commerce. Critical monk seal and$sea turtle habitat is at risk. Protection measures in the Executive Order already reflect a compromise. Send a message to maintain full protection for this fragile ecosystem.

Take Action!

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