energy policy

Marin Independent Journal: NOAA proposes major expansion of marine sanctuaries off Marin coast

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http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_25595415/noaa-proposes-major-expansion-marine-sanctuaries-off-marin

By Mark Prado
Marin Independent Journal
POSTED: 04/18/2014 03:47:46 PM PDT

Federal officials are once again floating a plan to protect additional waters off Marin and Sonoma counties with a large-scale expansion of marine sanctuary boundaries.

This week the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries released a proposal to expand the boundaries of Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries, with the agency accepting comments on the proposal through June 30.

“These are some of the areas that are most strategically and biologically sensitive,” said Mary Jane Schramm, spokeswoman for Gulf of the Farallones.

The proposal would expand Gulf of the Farallones from 1,279 square miles to 3,293 square miles. Cordell Bank would increase from 529 square miles to 1,286 square miles. The plan extends the boundaries of those sanctuaries north up to Sonoma and Mendocino counties and westward off Marin’s coast.

The United States has 14 national marine sanctuaries in a system designated by Congress and run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to protect and preserve “biodiversity, ecological integrity and cultural legacy.”

The sanctuaries are destination feeding areas for endangered blue whales and humpback whales, sharks, salmon, and seabirds like albatrosses that travel tens of thousands of miles. Food in the area supports the largest assemblage of breeding seabirds in the contiguous United States on the Farallon Islands, according to NOAA.

“The waters off the Northern California coast are nutrient-rich and drive a thriving marine ecosystem,” said Daniel Basta, director of NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. “These two sanctuaries provide great recreational and educational opportunities for thousands of visitors each year. Public comments are an important part of the process as we look at this proposal to expand the boundaries.”

Zeke Grader, executive director at Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, voiced some concern over the expansion, saying it gave NOAA officials too much discretion to allow for non-native aquaculture, dumping and the possibility of energy development in the waters.

“We want to see these fishing grounds protected and are not opposed to the expansion in general,” Grader said. “But I think there are going to have to be some changes made in the proposal.”

Under the plan there is no explicit proposed prohibition of offshore alternative, renewable energy development including wind, wave, solar or tidal. But a permit would be required.

NOAA officials say oil and gas exploration and development – already prohibited in the existing sanctuaries – would also be outlawed under expanded sanctuary boundaries under the proposal.

The proposed expansion does not include any fishing regulations under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, according to NOAA. A final plan could be adopted in the fall and go into place next year.

Gulf of the Farallones is made up of tidal flats, rocky intertidal areas, wetlands, subtidal reefs and coastal beaches. The sanctuary is home to thousands of seals and sea lions, and hosts of great white sharks and the largest concentration of breeding seabirds in the continental U.S.

The Cordell Bank Sanctuary sits beyond the Gulf of the Farallones, 52 miles northwest of Marin’s coast, at the edge of the continental shelf. Endangered humpback whales, porpoises, albatross and marine species flourish in the marine environment.

Since 2004 there have been attempts to get Congress to expand the sanctuaries’ boundaries, pushed primarily by former congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, but with no success.

But in December 2012 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials said they would look at the issue. Moving the process to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration effectively bypasses Congress and greatly boosts the chance for expansion.

Contact reporter Mark Prado via email at mprado@marinij.com.

IF YOU GO

The first hearing on the expansion will be at 6 p.m. May 22 at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Bay Model Visitor Center, 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, fracking, natural resource management, tar sands

Tampa Bay Times: Oil company drilling in sanctuary fined $25,000 for violation that could be fracking by Craig Pittman

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Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

Friday, April 18, 2014 7:44pm

The Texas company that stirred controversy by applying to drill for oil in Florida panther habitat was doing more with one of its wells than what its state permit allowed.
Related News/Archive

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection on Friday afternoon revealed that it had fined the Dan A. Hughes Co. $25,000 for violating its permit. The violation involves using a process that sounds like fracking — although the word “fracking” appears nowhere in either Friday’s DEP news release or the legal paperwork about the fine from 10 days earlier.

Instead, the 12-page consent order, dated April 8, says DEP officials became concerned about a “workover operation” that the Texas company launched without DEP permission in late December 2013. The well site is on an island surrounded by the National Audubon Society’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, a major nesting site for wood storks. DEP officials told Hughes to stop right away.

Determining exactly what the company did is difficult because the DEP censored that part of the order, labeling it “a confidential trade secret.”

However, the DEP news release says Hughes “proposed an enhanced extraction procedure that had not previously been used in Florida. The company proposed to inject a dissolving solution at sufficient pressure to achieve some openings in the oil-bearing rock formation that would be propped open with sand in pursuit of enhancing oil production.”

That matches the dictionary definition of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking: “the forcing open of fissures in subterranean rocks by introducing liquid at high pressure, especially to extract oil or gas.” Florida Petroleum Council executive director David Mica said it may mean Hughes was fracking, or it could mean it used one of several similar procedures.

Fracking has helped the United States vastly expand its production of natural gas by allowing greater access to reserves once considered too difficult to tap. However, scientists have expressed concern that the chemicals used in fracking may pose an environmental threat. Studies of fracking sites in Texas, Pennsylvania and Wyoming found elevated levels of arsenic in the groundwater, and Ohio geologists found a probable connection between fracking and a sudden burst of mild earthquakes.

The DEP’s order, which resulted from negotiations with Hughes officials, says the company must provide an “estimate of the total amount of flowback material” from the injection and explain where and how it disposed of it. The types of chemicals used were not named.

The order also says the Texas company must put in four monitoring wells to watch for any pollution spreading beyond its drilling site that might contaminate drinking water wells.

The company also must pay for independent experts to consider “the potential for injected or native fluids to migrate through the deep geological formations or the well casing into surrounding groundwater-bearing zones” —in other words, the aquifer.

DEP officials would say little about the order and did not respond to a reporter’s request to interview Ed Garrett, who heads up the oil and gas permit program. Hughes officials did not return repeated calls. Neither did anyone from Collier Resources, which owns the land.

Joe Mule, as president of Preserve Our Paradise, has led protests against a DEP permit allowing Hughes to drill on the edge of the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge as well as about 1,000 feet from the nearest occupied home in Naples’ Golden Gate Estates neighborhood. He said nobody from the DEP had told him or his neighbors of what the company had done.

Neither the DEP nor Hughes disclosed the violation during a recent hearing on the Golden Gate permit, said Preserve Our Paradise attorney Ralf Brookes.

Florida is not exactly Texas, where oil fields produced 588 million barrels of crude last year. But there are geological formations in the Panhandle and the area west of Lake Okeechobee that produced more than 2 million barrels in 2012.

As of last count there were 156 active wells in Florida, and the oil they pump out provided $700 million in tax revenue for the state. The oldest oil field is in Collier County, where the company that’s now Exxon drilled its first well in 1942.

Rising oil prices in recent years have spurred a push to increase drilling in Florida, and Hughes has been in the forefront. Last year the company boasted, “Hughes has been in the business of drilling oil and gas wells for over 50 years and enjoys an exemplary reputation as a domestic and international operator.”

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Craig Pittman can be reached at craig@tampabay.com. Follow him on Twitter at @craigtimes.

fracking

Common Dreams: Third Report in Three Days Shows Scale of Fracking Perils ‘We can conclude that this process has not been shown to be safe’

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Published on Thursday, April 17, 2014 by
– Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

March 2013 Annapolis, Maryland rally against fracking (Flickr / Maryland Sierra Club / Creative Commons license)The fracking industry is having a bad week.

In the third asssessment in as many days focused on the pollution created by the booming industry, a group of researchers said Wednesday that the controversial oil and gas drilling practice known as fracking likely produces public health risks and “elevated levels of toxic compounds in the environment” in nearly all stages of the process.

The latest research, conducted by the Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy, compiled “the first systematic literature review” of peer-reviewed studies on the effects of fracking on public health and found the majority of research points to dangerous risks to public health, with many opportunities for toxic exposure.

“It’s clear that the closer you are [to a fracking site], the more elevated your risk,” said lead author Seth Shonkoff, from the University of California-Berkeley. “We can conclude that this process has not been shown to be safe.”

According to the “near exhaustive review” of fracking research, environmental pollution is found “in a number of places and through multiple processes in the lifecycle of shale gas development,” the report states. “These sources include the shale gas production and processing activities (i.e., drilling, hydraulic fracturing, hydrocarbon processing and production, wastewater disposal phases of development); the transmission and distribution of the gas to market (i.e., in transmission lines and distribution pipes); and the transportation of water, sand, chemicals, and wastewater before, during, and after hydraulic fracturing.”

Citing the recent research, the report continues:

Shale gas development uses organic and inorganic chemicals known to be health damaging in fracturing fluids (Aminto and Olson 2012; US HOR 2011). These fluids can move through the environment and come into contact with humans in a number of ways, including surface leaks, spills, releases from holding tanks, poor well construction, leaks and accidents during transportation of fluids, flowback and produced water to and from the well pad, and in the form of run-off during blowouts, storms, and flooding events (Rozell and Reaven 2012). Further, the mixing of these compounds under conditions of high pressure, and often, high heat, may synergistically create additional, potentially toxic compounds (Kortenkamp et al. 2007; Teuschler and Hertzberg 1995; Wilkinson 2000). Compounds found in these mixtures may pose risks to the environment and to public health through numerous environmental pathways, including water, air, and soil (Leenheer et al. 1982). […]

At certain concentrations or doses, more than 75% of the chemicals identified are known to negatively impact the skin, eyes, and other sensory organs, the respiratory system, the gastrointestinal system, and the liver; 52% have the potential to negatively affect the nervous system; and 37% of the chemicals are candidate endocrine disrupting chemicals.

The group also warns that while numerous studies have proven the alarming and destructive nature of fracking, there is still not nearly enough research on the issue, particularly on the long-term effects of fracking on public health, such as future cancer rates.

“Most importantly,” say the authors, “there is a need for more epidemiological studies to assess associations between risk factors, such as air and water pollution and health outcomes among populations living in close proximity to shale gas operations.”

The review follows on the heels of two other reviews on the dangers of fracking released earlier this week.

The first report, a scientific study released Monday, found that methane emissions from fracking could be up to 1000 times greater than what the EPA has estimated. Methane is up to 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

The second report, a review conducted by Bloomberg News on Wednesday, detailed how industrial waste from fracking sites is leaving a “legacy of radioactivity” and other toxic problems across the country and spawning a “surge” in illegal dumping at hundreds of sites in the U.S.

BP Spill, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration

Undercurrent News: Coast Guard, BP, issue dueling news releases on state of Gulf oil spill recovery

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Coast Guard, BP, issue dueling news releases on state of Gulf oil spill recovery

Seafood Business News from Beneath the Surface

April 17, 2014, 4:03 pm

BP said that the “active cleanup” of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill had been brought “to a close” as of Tuesday night, but the Coast Guard begs to differ, stating in response on Tuesday that the spill response isn’t over yet.

“Not by a long shot,” the Coast Guard said.

Dueling news releases came out just before the fourth anniversary of the April 20, 2010, blowout on BP’s Macondo well, reports the Washington Post.

The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig caught fire and sank, 11 workers were killed and more than 4 million barrels of crude spilled into the gulf.

BP, which has vowed to “make things right,” said it issued its press release because the Coast Guard ended “patrols and operations” along the final three miles of Louisiana shoreline, capping a four-year effort that BP said cost more than $14 billion.

From now on, the Coast Guard and BP will not be scouring the coast for oil, but rather responding to specific reports of oil washing ashore.

BP said it wanted to note the “milestone” and said nearly 4,400 miles had been surveyed, with teams detecting oiling on 1,104 miles and doing at least some cleanup on 778 miles.
But Coast Guard Capt. Thomas Sparks, the federal on-scene coordinator of the Deepwater Horizon response, sought to stress that the switch to what he called a “middle response” process “does not end cleanup operations.”

“Our response posture has evolved to target re-oiling events on coastline segments that were previously cleaned,” said Sparks. “But let me be absolutely clear: This response is not over – not by a long shot.”

BP has been trying to bring the oil spill episode to a close and circumscribe costs that so far have reached $27 billion. Litigation over economic damages and federal fines under the Clean Water Act continues in New Orleans. The company has set aside roughly $42 billion for total costs.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

BP Spill, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration

CBS Evening News: Four years after devastating BP oil spill, scientists search for life in the Gulf

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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/four-years-after-devastating-bp-oil-spill-scientists-search-for-life-in-the-gulf/

CBS Evening News

By CHIP REID CBS NEWS April 17, 2014, 7:11 PM

It happened four years ago Sunday.

A well drilled by the BP oil company blew out, killing 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon rig and unleashing a gusher into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days.

Now for the first time since 2010, scientists got a close look at the seabed not far from the capped well.

Fifty miles off the coast of Louisiana we climbed aboard the research vessel Atlantis.
This is where we found Mandy Joye, a University of Georgia oceanographer and the leader of this expedition. She’s been studying the Gulf of Mexico for 20 years.

“People who have never seen the bottom of the ocean can’t appreciate how just phenomenal it is,” Joye said.

Joye and her team of 22 scientists are spending this month diving to the Gulf floor in a Navy research submarine named Alvin. They want to know how the bottom is doing four years after the oil spill.

The answer is a mile down, a two-hour descent into darkness.
“We are on the bottom at 1,607 meters,” Joye can be heard saying.

Alvin landed just two miles from the well that spewed 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

This is the first time Joye – or any human – has been down here since 2010.

What kind of marine life did she find down there four years ago?

“Four years ago there was nothing,” she said. “I saw one crab in an eight-hour dive. It was gut-wrenching to go down there and see just nothing on the sea floor. ”

And now?

“It’s very different,” Joye said. “Now, we saw eels and skates and a vampire squid, which I’d never seen before.

What does it mean to find a vampire squid in an area that had been dead?

“It means there’s a lot of food,” she said.

That was the good news.

But there was potential bad news in sediment samples collected from the sea floor. The mud contains an oily layer from the spill, and Joye worries the residue could adversely affect marine life in the longer term.

“This material that’s on the sea floor, there’s a lot of it,” she said. “It’s widespread. And it’s just sort of sitting there. And nothing’s happening to it.”

What does it mean to see that life is at least beginning to come back after the devastating oil spill?

“I was prepared to see little recovery and I was so relieved,” Joye said.
But there’s still a long way to go, she said.

“Because, again, this is one spot,” she said. “And you can’t apply what you see at one spot to the entire system.”

Joye and her team plan to keep a close watch on the Gulf with four or five research cruises a year. She said it could be a decade before the full impact of the oil spill is known.

_________________________Special thanks to Richard Charter

"Be the change you want to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi