http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-26/us/us_gulf-oil-coral_1_deepwater-horizon-oil-spill-coral-communities?_s=PM:US

OIL SPILL

March 26, 2012|By Matt Smith, CNN

*
Researchers found coral at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico covered with “black scum” and gooey brown mixture of materials.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill damaged coral formations deep beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and miles from the ruptured well at the heart of the disaster, researchers reported Monday.

Scientists using remote-controlled probes and the venerable research submersible Alvin spotted a coral colony covered in “black scum” about 7 miles (11 kilometers) southwest of the undersea gusher, Penn State University biologist Charles Fisher said. Another nearby formation was covered in a gooey brown and white mix of oil and organic materials from the coral, he said.

“What this does tell us is there was acute damage to a reef 7 miles away,” Fisher said. “It tells us it’s likely this oil hit a lot of other areas of the seafloor.”

Fisher was the chief scientist for an expedition that surveyed the area in November and December 2010 with funding from the National Science Foundation. Some of the findings are being published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Samples taken from the coral beds, located at a depth of about 4,300 feet, matched the chemical fingerprint of the oil from the Macondo well, said Helen White, the lead author of the paper documenting the results.

An estimated 4.9 million barrels (206 million gallons) of crude poured into the Gulf after the April 2010 explosion that sank the drill rig Deepwater Horizon and killed 11 men aboard. Oil spewed into the sea for nearly three months before a cap was placed on the BP-owned Macondo well, nearly a mile beneath the surface.

Scientists have previously confirmed that a plume of hydrocarbons from the well settled in the deep Gulf. White, a geochemist at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, said other data is still being analyzed.

“I think it’s going to take a while before we understand the long-term impacts of the spill,” she said.

Fisher said coral is a good bellwether because it is stationary, draws sustenance from the surrounding water and provides a refuge and breeding ground for other marine life.

“When a coral gets insulted, if you will, what it does is it produces a lot of mucus to try to get rid of that insult, kind of like we do reacting to dust or hay fever,” he said. The coral would normally shed that material, but in this case, it started to die, and the oil and other residues stuck to it.

What scientists saw wasn’t a “big puddle” of oil, “but there was enough in it that we could vacuum it off and fingerprint it,” he said.

“It certainly told us that we need to look around for more coral communities in the area and try to define the full footprint of the impact,” he said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/03/30-3

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 30, 2012
1:37 PM

CONTACT: Friends of The Earth
Kelly Trout, 202-222-0722, ktrout@foe.org
Michal Rosenoer, 202-222-0734, mrosenoer@foe.org

WASHINGTON – March 30 – Legislation introduced yesterday in both the U.S. House and Senate would provide liability protection for oil companies, gas retailers and engine manufacturers against any engine damage resulting from consumers’ use of E15, a gasoline blended with 15 percent ethanol. The bill, known as the “Domestic Fuels Act of 2012,” would encourage the transition of E15 into the U.S. marketplace despite overwhelming evidence that the fuel will severely damage small engines, void consumer warranties and pollute drinking water.

Michal Rosenoer, biofuels policy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, had the following statement in response:

“Gas prices are shooting up and big oil executives are making millions, while parents can’t afford to get their kids to school. We’re already subsidizing Big Oil with billions of taxpayer dollars and mandating the use of polluting, inefficient corn ethanol in our fuel. Now some members of Congress are excusing oil companies from paying for the damage caused by their dirty fuel and sticking American consumers with the bill.

“Senator Hoeven, Representative Shimkus and others in Congress seem more concerned with safeguarding oil company profits than protecting millions of Americans from a fuel that will damage their engines, void warranties and harm the environment.”
###

Friends of the Earth is the U.S. voice of the world’s largest grassroots environmental network, with member groups in 77 countries. Since 1969, Friends of the Earth has fought to create a more healthy, just world.

No Sign of Oyster Recovery Two Years After BP Oil Spill

BY DAN FLYNN | MAR 30, 2012
With the second anniversary of the BP oil spill fast approaching, attention is once again returning to the damaged Gulf environment, especially to its greatly diminished oyster production.

The worst man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history put 200 million gallons of oil and two million gallons of toxic dispersants into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico with the April 20, 2010 explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform and uncontrolled oil spill it caused.

The Gulf oyster supply is going through a second very limited season with demand not reaching anywhere near pre-BP oil spill levels.

In recent days, plaintiff attorneys on behalf of thousands of Gulf residents and businesses reached settlements with BP’s defense team expected to total around $7.8 billion. That’s in addition to $6.5 billion paid to about 200,000 individuals and businesses that went with BP’s out-of-court fund.

BP, however, has not yet had to pay a dime in compensation for its impact on the Gulf ecosystem. The federal government could pursue both criminal environmental penalties and separate civil action against BP, which together might hit $60 billion.

The oil company is spending millions to promote Gulf tourism and spread an all-cleaned-up image. And top officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are repeatedly brought out to tout Gulf food safety.

But below the surface of Gulf waters, marine scientists keep reporting findings that are not so reassuring. For example, Auburn University’s Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures found supposedly harmless tar balls–periodically found on Gulf beaches–teeming with bacteria.

“As long as BP’s tar balls keep washing ashore on Gulf Coast beaches folks who come into contact with them and who have a compromised immune system or advanced diabetes or liver disease such as cirrhosis are at risk for contracting fibrosis through skin abrasions and lacerations–just as those who consume raw oysters with Vibrio vulnificus,” says marine expert Ed Cake. “We knew when the oil spill was at its peak flow rate that V. vulnificus bacterium would proliferate because it consumed oil, but we were not aware those tar balls would continue to threaten beach goers and BP’s clean-up crews that come into contact with them.”

Vibrio vulnificus is a bacteria in the same family as those that cause cholera. It normally lives in warm seawater and is part of a group of vibrios that are called “halophilic” because they require salt to live. Not all Vibrio vulnificus are pathogenic to humans, and that points to how much research still needs to be done about the Gulf’s post-spill ecology. Cake, whose Mississippi State license plate is “Oyster 1,” says researchers “should err on the side of caution.”

‘Whether or not a specific Vibrio vulnificus is pathogenic matters not to the bacteriologist who is determining the relative levels of that bacterium in molluscan shellfish or in growing waters for management purposes,” Cake says. “But it will matter to at at-risk (immuno-compromised) person who should avoid exposure to V. vulnificus including those strains in BP’s tar balls since he or she could find out too late that the strain encountered was, in fact, pathogenic–and deadly.”

Auburn research professor Cova Arias, who works from a Dauphin Island laboratory, warns anyone coming across a tar ball on the Gulf coast to give it a wide berth, as if were “a bad crab or something rotten on the beach.”
Two years later, fourth generation oysterman Nick Collins said there is nothing but dead shells in the Louisiana oyster beds that produced 60 to 80 sacks of oysters a day before the BP spill.

“Has anyone found a successful spring spat set on their leases yet?” asks Mississippi-based oyster expert Ed Cake. “Is there any evidence that the long-awaited oyster industry recovery has begun east of the (Mississippi) River or in the Barataria Bay area?”

Oyster spat are larvae that successfully attach to a solid substrate, usually other oyster shells on an oyster bar, and begin growing and forming shells.

At the peak of the oil spill, about 40 percent of U.S. Gulf waters were closed to all recreational and commercial fishing – finfish and shellfish included. The area closed was about the size of the State of Minnesota. U.S. waters include the area from three to 200 miles from shore.

Almost all state waters west of the Florida peninsula were also closed.

BP, in paid television advertising since December, depicts both tourism and commercial fishing as recovering nicely. The company is paying for $179 million in tourism promotion and another $82 million in seafood testing and marketing.

Many Gulf residents think BP just wants to close the book on the disaster. That’s unlikely to happen until the environmental bill is paid, and funds are set aside to restore Gulf ecosystem.
The herring fishery in Prince William Sound is only now beginning to recover, 22 year after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, and the oyster fishery in Mexico’s Terminos Lagoon has not fully recovered 32 year after the 1979 Ixtoc-1 oil spill, says Cake.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/23555

Sustainable Business

03/29/2012 03:42 PM

Interior to Begin Seismic Exploration for Oil Drilling Off East Coast
SustainableBusiness.com News
The Department of Interior announced yesterday that it’s moving forward to open offshore oil and gas exploration off our Mid- and South Atlantic coastline.

To determine where it’s best to drill, oil companies first use dangerous high-pressure air guns and other seismic exploration methods up and down the Atlantic coast.

Imagine blasting dynamite in a neighborhood every 10-12 seconds for weeks or months on end. Now imagine that you can’t see, and depend on your hearing to feed, communicate and just about everything else you need for survival. That’s the situation whales, fish, and other marine wildlife are facing.

“Today’s announcement is great for petroleum companies, but horrible news for our coastlines and a potentially deadly blow to ocean fisheries and wildlife. It’s yet another reason why we need to break our dangerous addiction to oil-not find more ways to feed that addiction,” says Frances Beinecke, President of Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Michael Jasny, Senior Policy Analyst for NRDC says:
Airgun noise is loud enough to mask whale calls over literally thousands of miles, destroying their capacity to communicate and breed. It can drive whales to abandon their habitat and cease foraging, again over vast areas of ocean; closer in, it can cause hearing loss and death. The latest science from NOAA and Cornell shows that endangered North Atlantic right whales – which calve off the coast of Georgia and Florida – are especially vulnerable.

And the concern isn’t just about whales. For years, fishermen in other parts of the world have complained about loss of catch when seismic comes around – and for good reason. Norwegian researchers have shown that airguns dramatically depress catch rates in commercial fish by as much as 40-80%, depending on the fishing method. Again the impact area can be huge: roughly the size of Rhode Island for a single seismic survey.

Green technologies that would substantially cut the environmental footprint of airguns in many areas can be available for commercial use in 3-5 years or less. Yet the administration is opening the floodgates now, in areas it doesn’t even intend to consider for leasing until 2017. Industry has already applied to run hundreds of thousands of miles of trackline from Delaware south through Florida, blasting all the way.

We can’t boom-and-drill our way to lower gas prices. But we can destroy our oceans trying.
In coming months, the Department of Interior will hold public hearings on this issue.

Last November, President Obama announced his 5-year plan for offshore drilling. It’s hard to understand why this seismic exploration is necessary given that his plan says the Pacific and Atlantic coasts would be off-limits to drilling.
The plan satisfies neither the GOP – which wants much more widespread drilling – or the environmental community – which points to the Gulf spill as evidence that there is no safe offshore drilling in deep waters.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/drilling-off-the-atlantic-coast-moves-a-step-closer/2012/03/28/gIQApNvrhS_story.html

Washington Post

Drilling off the Atlantic Coast moves a step closer

March 28, 2012

By Darryl Fears,
The Obama administration on Wednesday took a significant step toward allowing oil and natural gas companies to drill off the coasts of Virginia and other Eastern Seaboard states.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a plan to allow companies to conduct seismic mapping surveys on the outer continental shelf of the Atlantic Coast from Delaware to the middle of Florida.

“As part of our offshore energy strategy, we want to open the opportunity to conduct seismic exploration so we can know what resources exist in those areas,” Salazar said in Norfolk. “The fact is our information is 30 years old, and it’s out of date. The bottom line is it’s an important safe step to understand what resources are out there.”

In addition to assessing how much oil and natural gas is in the area, seismic testing would help determine the best places for wind turbines and other renewable energy projects, locate sand and gravel for restoring eroding coastal areas, and identify cultural artifacts such as historic sunken ships.

Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, in a statement, praised the announcement as “a small step forward in the development of our offshore energy resources.” But he also chided the administration for not allowing oil exploration off Virginia last year, a “breakthrough that would have led to the creation of thousands of new jobs in our state, generated significant revenues for state and local governments, and led to more domestic energy production.”

Environmental groups attacked the survey proposal, saying the sonic booms could injure hundreds of thousands of dolphins and whales and disrupt the feeding, mating and reproductive patterns of marine mammals millions of times each year.

“They’re acoustic animals. They’ve evolved over millions of years,” said Michael Jasny, a senior analyst for the Natural Resources Defence Council. “To take away their ability to hear, to damage their ears could be like a death sentence.”

“Why explore when we don’t want drilling in the first place?” asked Eileen Levandoski, a Virginia Beach resident who works for the Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter. “While the [Gulf of Mexico] and its people are today still reeling from the BP gulf oil spill disaster, there are huge incidents right now occurring off the coast of Scotland in the North Sea and off the Brazilian coast. The risk continues to be real and formidable.”

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has received about 10 requests for permits from companies that conduct seismic surveys and sell the data to oil companies. Seismic surveys map hundreds of miles of ocean with acoustic waves that reveal contours of the ocean floor.

Surveys could begin early next year. Before that happens, BOEM will hold public hearings in Annapolis, Norfolk, Savannah and five other cities along the coast. Public comment is scheduled to end May 30, and the process of incorporating the testimony and finalizing the plan will take the rest of the year.

McDonnell’s government said 80 percent of Virginians support offshore oil and gas exploration. The governor said not allowing exploration last year pushed back any possibility of lease sales to 2018, at the earliest, and he said $4-a-gallon gasoline prices are evidence that exploration is needed.

Salazar, echoing Obama and economic experts, said that “there is no silver bullet for high gas prices” and that current domestic gas production is higher than any time in the past eight years.

“I’m proud of the progress that we’ve made over the last three years. Domestic gas and oil production is up, foreign imports of oil are down,” Salazar said. “In fact, imports of oil decreased by a million barrels a day in the last year alone.”

Tommy Beaudreau, director of BOEM, said planning surveys takes time. “Seismic surveys are important … but you need to be careful to manage the potential environmental effects, including effects on marine mammals.”

Jasny said those effects will be significant. He said that the technique has been used in many waters and that “seismic air guns have an enormous environmental footprint.
“Humpback whales and fin whales, both endangered, have been shown to fall silent and abandon habitat over areas of hundreds of thousands of square miles. Fish have been displaced over vast areas.

“Fishermen have complained for years about losses in catch,” he said.
Staff writer Anita Kumar contributed to this report.

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http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/schasis/drilling_our_atlantic_coast.html

Sarah Chasis’s Blog
Drilling our Atlantic Coast

Posted March 28, 2012 in Reviving the World’s Oceans

Some of the most mysterious and enthralling places on Earth may be next in line for oil and gas drilling.

Today the Obama Administration released its draft Environmental Impact Statement on its proposed plan to allow areas offshore the Mid- and South Atlantic to be surveyed for their energy development potential. This would allow seismic surveying, which uses air guns (i.e. high decibel acoustic energy pulses blasted from ships) to map the ocean floor.

Seismic surveys can be catastrophic to ocean life, including endangered whales and commercial fishing stocks.

In the ocean, animals communicate by sound. The sound impact from seismic surveys can displace marine mammals, including the endangered North Atlantic right whale, away from nurseries and foraging, mating, spawning, and migratory corridors. Seismic airgun surveys also have been shown to damage or kill fish and fish larvae and have been implicated in whale beaching and stranding incidents.

And these surveys will be occurring at and around some of the Atlantic’s most amazing submarine canyons. (“Ocean Oases” is a short NRDC film about the urgent need to protect the Atlantic Coast’s underwater canyons and seamounts.)

Cut into the Atlantic’s continental shelf is a series of vast undersea canyons, starting just north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and running up past Cape Cod. The canyons dive down thousands of feet over clay and stone cliffs before reaching the deep ocean bottom. The canyons host an amazing variety and abundance of marine life. Their hard foundations have allowed deep sea corals, rare sponges, and vivid anemones to grow and a bevy of fish and shellfish find food and shelter in these complex and dynamic environments. Endangered sperm whales, beaked whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals feed on congregating schools of squid and small fish. Commercial and recreational fishermen enjoy fishing the waters around the canyons. The types of coral and sponge communities in the seamounts and canyons have even yielded scientific and technological advances, including compounds for cancer treatments, models for artificial synthesis of human bone, and elements for constructing more durable optic cables.The canyons that would be impacted by seismic surveys in the Mid and South-Atlantic include Baltimore, Accomac, Washington, and Norfolk.

The oil and gas industry has not been allowed in these areas since drilling exploratory wells near several of the canyons in the early 1980s; Salazar’s announcement changes this.

We do need to plan ahead for our energy needs. Well-sited renewable energy shows much promise to help us keep the lights on at home. After the Deepwater Horizon disaster, we know the widespread ecological and economic devastation that can result from an offshore oil well blow-out. Even small oil spills can kill marine organisms and disrupt marine ecosystems. Properly sited offshore wind offers us a cleaner and safer way forward.

Our oceans support a host of jobs, food and recreation and we need to protect our ocean resources and allow these important services to continue into the future.

________________

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/294755/after-long-delays-obama-takes-tiny-steps-toward-new-drilling

National Review

The Campaign Spot
Election-driven news and views . . . by Jim Geraghty.

After Long Delays, Obama Takes Tiny Steps Toward New Drilling
By Jim Geraghty
March 29, 2012 9:31 A.M.
1
Credit where it is due: President Obama’s Interior Department has taken a tiny step toward exploration for oil and natural gas off the coast of the Eastern seaboard from Delaware to Florida:
For the Atlantic, the administration released a draft environmental review outlining a 330,000-square-mile area from the Delaware Bay to Cape Canaveral, Fla., where seismic surveys could be conducted. The administration has no current plans to allow drilling in the Atlantic, though Mr. Salazar said that could change in light of the surveys.

Of course, this is after about a year’s delay. You can hear the “about time, guys” tone in the statement from Virginia governor Bob McDonnell:

It is encouraging that Secretary Salazar visited Virginia today to announce a small step forward in the development of our offshore energy resources. Unfortunately this small step forward follows many previous steps back. Virginia was poised to become the first state on the east coast to produce oil and natural gas offshore. This breakthrough would have led to the creation of thousands of new jobs in our state, generated significant new revenues for state and local governments, and led to more domestic energy production. Instead, this Administration cancelled Virginia’s scheduled lease sale for 2011, and pushed any possible lease sales to 2018, at the very earliest. With gas hitting $4 a gallon that seven-year self-ordered delay is more noticeable than ever. We should be looking for every opportunity to safely produce more domestic energy. Our citizens need the jobs; our nation needs the energy. Instead, the Obama Administration declared a seven-year timeout. That was the wrong decision. There is broad bipartisan support in Virginia for developing our offshore energy resources and Virginians support this common sense policy. We will continue to aggressively seek the lifting of these federal limitations on offshore oil and gas development. These decisions are leaving private capital that could be invested in expanding our domestic energy resources on the sidelines at a time when private investment in business expansion and job creation is so urgently needed to heal our ailing economy.
While we continue to be incredibly disappointed by last year’s decision, I do want to thank the Obama Administration for their announcement today.

Of course, seismic surveys are only the first step in developing any energy resources off the Eastern seaboard. Actually, I shouldn’t say any energy development; Virginia’s just given approval to another form that is supposed to be a source of bipartisan agreement.

Now it’s up to the federal government:
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission has voted unanimously to approve proposed construction of a 479-foot-tall, 5 MW offshore wind turbine generator prototype in the lower Chesapeake Bay, three miles off the coast of Cape Charles, Va. The construction of the prototype turbine is scheduled to be completed in late 2013, which could make this project one of the first offshore wind energy prototypes in the U.S.The wind power project now requires approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and review by the U.S. Coast Guard.

And one other bit of reasonably good news:
Separately, the Interior Department approved Royal Dutch Shell’s oil spill response plan for Alaska’s Beaufort Sea on Wednesday.Shell is working to begin drilling off Alaska’s coast this summer after repeated regulatory delays for the company’s Arctic exploration program. Shell will still need well-specific permits before it starts drilling. Interior approved Shell’s response plan for Alaska’s Chukchi Sea earlier this year.

So, after weeks of insisting that the U.S. can’t drill its way out of its gas-price problems, the administration takes a step to approve drilling in one previously verboten area and a tiny step towards drilling in another one. Why, it’s almost as if the line the president was touting on the trail proved to be erroneous, and suddenly reached its expiration date . . .

Special thanks to Richard Charter

https://www.data.boem.gov/homepg/data_center/other/gmaillist/subscribe.asp

U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region

SPECIAL INFORMATION

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is the Federal agency responsible for managing offshore energy and mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). A Notice of Availability for the Draft Atlantic G&G Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was published in the Federal Register on March 30, 2012, and the Draft Atlantic G&G Programmatic EIS has been distributed for a 60-day comment period ending on May 30, 2012.

The proposed action is to permit geological and geophysical (G&G) activities in support of oil and gas exploration and development, renewable energy, and marine minerals in the Mid- and South Atlantic Planning Areas. The Atlantic G&G Programmatic EIS will be used by BOEM and other responsible agencies to comply with various environmental laws (e.g., Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, etc.).

Public meetings during the public comment period allow Federal, State, and local government agencies, and other interested parties to comment on the Draft Programmatic EIS and assist BOEM in developing the Final Atlantic G&G Programmatic EIS.

The public meetings are scheduled as follows:

• Monday, April 16, 2012, Jacksonville, Florida: Jacksonville Marriott, 4760 Salisbury Road, Jacksonville, FL 32256; two meetings, one beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT and one beginning at 7:00 p.m. EDT;

• Wednesday, April 18, 2012, Savannah, Georgia: Coastal Georgia Center, 305 Farm Street, Savannah, GA 31401; two meetings, one beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT and one beginning at 7:00 p.m. EDT;

• Friday, April 20, 2012, Charleston, South Carolina: Embassy Suites North Charleston, 5055 International Boulevard, Charleston, SC 29418; two meetings, one beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT and one beginning at 7:00 p.m. EDT;

• Tuesday, April 24, 2012, Norfolk, Virginia: Hilton Norfolk Airport, 1500 N. Military Highway, Norfolk, VA 23502; two meetings, one beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT and one beginning at 7:00 p.m. EDT;

• Wednesday, April 25, 2012, Annapolis, Maryland: Doubletree Hotel Annapolis, 210 Holiday Court, Annapolis, MD 21401; two meetings, one beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT and one beginning at 7:00 p.m. EDT;

• Thursday, April 26, 2012, Wilmington, North Carolina: Hilton Wilmington Riverside, 301 North Water Street, Wilmington, NC 28401; two meetings, one beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT and one beginning at 7:00 p.m. EDT;

• Thursday, April 26, 2012, Wilmington, Delaware: Sheraton Suites Wilmington, 422 Delaware Avenue, Wilmington, DE 19801; two meetings, one beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT and one beginning at 7:00 p.m. EDT; and

• Friday, April 27, 2012, Atlantic City, New Jersey: Atlantic City Convention Center, One Convention Boulevard, Atlantic City, NJ, 08401; one meeting beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT.

If you cannot attend the meetings, you may submit written comments within the comment period. Comments should specifically address aspects of the Draft Atlantic G&G Programmatic EIS and may be submitted in one of the following two ways:

1. In an envelope labeled “Comments on the Draft Atlantic G&G Programmatic EIS” and mailed (or hand carried) to Mr. Gary D. Goeke, Chief, Regional Assessment Section, Office of Environment (MS 5410), Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123-2394; or

2. BOEM email address: GGEIS@boem.gov.

The BOEM will be printing and distributing a very limited number of paper copies. In keeping with the Department of the Interior’s mission of protection of natural resources, and to limit costs while ensuring availability of the document to the public, BOEM will primarily distribute digital copies of the EIS on compact discs. However, if you require a paper copy, BOEM will provide one upon request if copies are still available.

1. You may obtain a copy of the Draft Atlantic G&G Programmatic EIS from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123-2394, Attention: Public Information Office (MS 5034), 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, Room 250, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123-2394 (1-800-200-GULF).

2. You may download or view the Draft Atlantic G&G Programmatic EIS on BOEM’s Atlantic G&G website at http://.boem.gov/and-Gas-Energy-Program//.aspx or on BOEM’s NEPA website at http://.boem.gov/Stewardship/Assessment//.aspx.

If you have any questions, you may call Mr. Gary D. Goeke at (504) 736-3233.

You are receiving this notification if you provided us with your email address at some point during scoping for the Draft Atlantic G&G Programmatic EIS. If you would like to receive announcements for public meetings and the availability of our environmental documents for Atlantic activities, please submit your name and contact information to BOEM at the website below. You may also request to be removed from the current BOEM mailing list in the same way.