Special thanks to Richard Charter
Opinion: DIRTY BUSINESS
Fran Gibson
January 10, 2010 6:54 AM
This is re: the recent column by Ron Meyer Jr. on the effect of offshore oil drilling on natural oil seeps. The author’s premise is that offshore drilling alleviates the pressure of natural oil seeps in the Santa Barbara coast region. We disagree.
The column says the amount of natural seepage is from 150 to 250 barrels per day off Coal Oil Point (over 5,000 barrels per year or 210,000 gallons) to 86,000 barrels per year in the Santa Barbara area; 86,000 barrels equates to 3.6 million gallons.
The 1969 Santa Barbara blowout was 200,000 gallons (what he contends is seeping daily from Coal Oil Point annualized) and the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska was 10.8 million gallons. That means every three years, the natural seepage would be equal to an Exxon Valdez spill. If that were the case, the ocean all along our coast, not just Santa Barbara, would be one big gooey oil mess, our beaches would be black and unusable, and there would not be any living thing off our shores.
Could it be that the numbers are just more statistics the oil industry fabricates?
No one really knows how much oil is seeping naturally. The Interior Department’s MMS division is presently conducting a five-year study to look at offshore Southern California within the area between Point Arguello and Ventura to document the locations, determine a geochemical footprint to distinguish natural tar residues and to “measure the rate of natural seepage of individual seeps and attempt to access the regional natural oil and gas seepage rates.” We do not currently have this scientific information confirmed conclusively.
Mr. Meyer’s column claims that drilling will relieve the pressure and reduce the natural seeps. Another fabrication by the oil industry. There is not, to our knowledge, any scientific study to support this contention. The one study done on this was in 1999 and published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. One of the lead authors of the study, Bruce Luyendyk, said the group SOS (which is perpetrating the myth that drilling reduces natural oil seeps) is “extrapolating these results in ways that are not justified.”
Mr. Meyer’s column also says the single biggest source of air pollution is the natural seeps. But no one knows how much pollution actually seeps.
Each offshore oil platform — there are 24 — generates some 214,000 pounds of air pollutants each year (National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration). An average exploration well for oil or natural gas generates some 50 tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx), 13 tons of carbon monoxide, 6 tons of sulfur dioxide and 5 tons of volatile organic hydrocarbons. These pollutants are the precursors to smog, acid rain, and contribute to global warming.
Our guess is the single biggest producer of air pollution in this area are the ships that ply the Santa Barbara Channel, with cars or the oil platforms coming in second and third.
Offshore oil drilling will not reduce pollution; it will contribute to it.
Let’s face it: Drilling for oil is a dirty business from start to finish — from the sounds produced by seismic surveys to locate oil that deafens and kills fish and marine mammals, to the tons of waste discarded into the water from drilling operations.
Debris from offshore operations includes drill cuttings and drilling mud brought up during the drilling process. This mud contains toxic metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury. Other pollutants produced from a rig’s daily operations include benzene, arsenic and other known carcinogens.
The author is president of the board of Coastwalk California.