Could Offshore Oil Fund Beach Projects?

According to the N&O, Walter Jones would like to use proceeds from offshore drilling to fund beach renourishment and dredging projects. Since federal funds for these types of projects have dwindled over the years, I bet that is appealing for some communities such as Nags Head.

Can these projects bring enough revenue to coastal communities such that the benefits outweigh the potential environmental costs?

According to the Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club:

If that should happen, we should know that:

• Offshore drilling activities lead to the destruction of coastal wetlands. In Louisiana, where oil and gas development has been conducted for 50 years, close to 62 square miles of wetlands are lost each year.
• The pollution from offshore rigs causes a wide range of health and reproductive problems for fish and other marine life.
• Oil and gas operations dump more than 1 billion pounds of mercury-contaminated drilling fluids into the Gulf each year. Mercury levels in the sand around some Gulf rigs are three times higher than levels found at EPA Superfund sites where fishing is prohibited. Mercury levels in marine creatures living around these rigs are at least 25 times higher than in fish found elsewhere in the Gulf. Why then is the oil industry promoting rigs as "fish-rich oasis in the vast desert of the Gulf"? Tests of 70 coastal residents who ate Gulf-caught fish at least once a week show mercury levels of 5-10 times the EPA’s safe level for mercury in the human body. Since Gulf-caught fish are shipped all over the country, this is a health hazard of national proportions.
• "Routine" offshore drilling operations dump thousands of pounds of drilling muds into the ocean that contain toxic heavy metals such as lead, chromium and mercury.
• A single production platform, which can drill 50-100 wells, discharges over 90,000 metric tons of drilling fluid and metal cuttings into the ocean.
• A single exploratory well dumps approximately 25,000 pounds of toxic metals into the ocean.
• A single offshore rig emits the same air pollution as 7,000 cars driving 50 miles per day.
• The continued use of fossil fuels poses a particular threat to the residents of Florida. Fossil fuels increase global warming which leads in turn to the melting of the polar icecaps. In Florida, this will result in serious sea-level rise, while the higher temperatures will lead to more tropical diseases and heat-related deaths.

Spill statistics can be found here. Below is a graph of spills in the Gulf, between 1996 and 2007, which were greater than 50 bbls. Notice the higher number of spills associated with significant hurricanes. In 2005, the year Katrina and Rita ravaged the Gulf, 49 spills, each greater than 50 bbl, contributed roughly 15154.3 bbl.




Is this a substantial amount of oil? Deroy Murdock,columnist with Scripps Howard News Service, says no in an op-ed piece in the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

Feinstein is correct. U.S. offshore oil drilling is not perfectly tidy. It's only 99.999 percent clean. Indeed, since 1980 -- as MMS figures indicate -- 101,997 barrels spilled from among the 11.855 billion barrels of American oil extracted offshore. This is a 0.001 percent pollution rate. While offshore drilling is not 100 percent spotless, this record should satisfy all but the terminally fastidious.

Ironically, in terms of oil contamination, Mother Nature is 95 times dirtier than Man. Some 620,500 barrels of oil ooze organically from North America's ocean floors each year. Compare this to the average 6,555 barrels that oil companies have spilled annually since 1998, according to MMS.

I look forward to reading more debate on this. I still hold the opinion that we, as a nation, need more a substantial energy policy. It seems to me that this should be a small part of this larger debate, not a central issues.

Fish Heart Hurricanes

From NOAA:

NOAA-supported scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium found the size of this year’s Gulf of Mexico dead zone to be 7,988 square miles, slightly smaller than the predicted record size of 8,800 square miles and similar to the area measured in 2007. Scientists think Hurricane Dolly’s wind and waves may have added oxygen to the zone to reduce its size.

Hurricane Bertha Revisited: Hurricanes and Ocean Temperature

From NASA:

Weakening Magnuson or Adding Flexibility?

It appears that different fishing interests are holding hands again. From the Cape May County Herald:

Members of the recreational, charter, and commercial fishing industries, representing over 100 fishing organizations, met with Members of Congress and congressional staff in support of bipartisan legislation which promotes healthy populations of fisheries and fishing communities.

H.R. 5425, the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fishery Act of 2008, co-sponsored by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Henry Brown (R-SC), Barney Frank (D-MA), and Walter Jones (R-NC) would provide a measure of flexibility into the management process without compromising conservation goals.

At present, the law requires a total rebuilding of the stock of certain “overfished” species within 10 years, often requiring drastic reductions in fishing quotas and in some cases a complete or effective shut-down of the fishery.

Here is a summary of the bill from the Congressional Research Service:

Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2008 - Amends the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to require fishery management plans, amendments, or regulations for overfished fisheries to specify a time period for ending overfishing and rebuilding the fishery that is as short as practicable (currently, as short as possible). Modifies the exceptions to the requirement that such period not exceed ten years.

Requires consideration, in evaluating progress to end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks, of factors other than commercial and recreational fishing.

Requires, when the Secretary of Commerce extends the period under specified provisions, that the maximum rebuilding time not exceed the sum of the initial ten-year period, the expected time to rebuild the stock absent any fishing mortality and under prevailing environmental conditions, and the mean generation time of the stock.

St Pete Beach to Renourish

Yesterday, I wrote a post* discussing the fate of T-Groins in St Pete Beach. The St Pete Beach City Commission has decided to remove the T-Groins and go ahead with a beach renourishment project.

The commission decided to go forward with a beach renourishment project in 2009 and recover the T-groins.

In 2010, they'll hire an engineer to look at alternative plans for the area, such as a possible artificial reef.

Council members will then begin implementing those changes by 2012.

* I originally stated that this decision was being made by the county commissioners. This was incorrect. The decision was made by the St Pete Beach City Commission.

Find More, Use Less

From Morning Edition:

The Senate brings up another bill aimed at lowering gas prices Tuesday, as Republicans tout a new slogan: "Find more. Use less." It's a paradox because finding more oil drives the price down, which encourages consumption. And despite talk of conservation, election-year efforts by Congress to lower gas prices may actually diminish incentives to lower oil consumption.

Is this really a paradox? It would be a paradox if we had enough oil to cause a substantial shift in supply, thus driving down prices. It is my understanding that the US does not have enough oil to substantially impact prices. I still think that all this talk of additional drilling is a diversion from developing a comprehensive energy policy, but calling it a paradox is a bit of a stretch.

Another stretch?

GA Senator Johnny Isakson: "The Congress of the United States is sitting on a ham sandwich, starving to death."

That is a pretty small ham sandwich and it needs some mustard!

Hardening St Pete Beach

Between Upham Beach to the St. Pete Beach, coastal managers have been trying to address beach erosion using temporary T-Groins. Now City Commissioners of St Pete Beach are debating whether to replace existing sandbags with a more permanent structure (i.e. rocks). From baynews9.com:

The tubes are temporary to test out the size and T-shape. If approved by city commissioners, the county wants to replace the bags with rocks.

Pinellas County Coastal Coordinator Nicole Elko said during the two-year study 50 percent of the sand has eroded, without the tubes it would have been 80 percent.

The current project cost $1.5 million and is funded by the county and state.

Elko said the tubes would save millions of dollars down the road. It costs $6 million to pump in more sand and restore the beach. The bags cut that in half at $3 million.

Below is a jpeg I made using Google Earth showing these T-Groins.



Notice the convex shape of the beach around the groins. You can also see a jetty to the left of the first T-Groin. All these structures impact longshore transport of sand.