What's 635 pages long, fully illustrated, weighs 5.4 pounds, cost millions of taxpayer dollars to produce, was written and signed by a blue-ribbon, cross-sectoral panel of ocean scientists, military, DC legislators, and business leaders, and endorsed by an august and prestigious science advisory panel? It's An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century, the final report by the US Commission on Ocean Policy published in 2004.This isn't the first time I've called reader's attention to the Ocean Blueprint. Last time I did it was with some skepticism over whether the Bush Administration would take seriously any of the recommendations for action that were outlined in the 2007 IPCC Report on climate change (that just so happened to echo and reinforce similar recommendations outlined in the Ocean Blueprint three years earlier). Sadly, my skepticism was justified.
So here I am once again returning to the Ocean Blueprint curious to see what it had to say regarding a scenario that now unfolds as a result of the BP Gulf Oil disaster.
I refer to Chapter 24, Managing Offshore Energy and Other Mineral Resources, p. 357 (Rise in Deep-Water Oil Production):
Although production in the Gulf of Mexico's heavily leased shallow waters has been steadily declining, production in its deeper waters (more than 1,000 feet), which tend to produce more oil than natural gas, increased by over 500 percent between 1995 and 2002. In part, this growth was attributable to technological breakthroughs, the relative stabilization of crude oil prices, and the enactment of legislation in 1995 granting various levels of royalty relief to lessees willing to make the risky investment in the Gulf's deeper waters. Deep-water oil production now accounts for more than half of the Gulf's production. Additionally, the technology for ultra-deep-water development continues to advance with the drilling of a number of exploratory and production wells in water depths greater than 7,000 feet. Recently, a world record exploratory well was drilled in 10,000 feet of water.Just for reference, BP's Deepwater Horizon blowout was a production well on the seafloor at a depth of 1,500 m (approximately 5,000 feet) of seawater, just shy of the boundary of what the Ocean Blueprint classifies as "ultra-deep-water" oil extraction.
Beginning on p. 361, the Ocean Blueprint outlines concerns regarding environmental safety related to offshore oil and gas production. While acknowledging that the US oil industry's environmental safety record has improved since the 1969 Santa Barbara blowout, numerous environmental issues associated with the development and production of oil and gas from the outer continental shelf (OCS) persist. Foremost among these are:
• Physical damage to coastal wetlands and other fragile areas by OCS-related onshore infrastructure and pipelines.Continuing on p. 363, the Ocean Blueprint reiterates and emphasizes that,
• Physical disruption of and damage to bottom-dwelling marine communities.
• Immediate and long-term ecological effects of large oil spills.
• Cumulative impacts on the marine, coastal, and human environments.
OCS oil and gas exploratory activities in the Gulf of Mexico are now occurring in water depths approaching 10,000 feet with projections that the industry will achieve 15,000 feet drilling capabilities within the next decade. The technological ability to conduct oil and gas activities in even deeper waters on the OCS places a significant and important responsibility [my emphasis] on the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to collect the essential environmental deep-water data necessary for it and other agencies to make informed management and policy decisions on exploration and production activities at those depths [my emphasis]. Thus, as the knowledge base increases and the industry expands its activities further offshore and into deeper waters, new environmental issues are emerging that cannot all be adequately addressed under the current MMS Environmental Studies Program budget [my emphasis].So what did the Ocean Blueprint authors recommend for action?
Recommendation 24-2, p. 364, states that the US Department of the Interior should expand the Minerals Management Service's Environmental Studies Program (ESP). Priorities for the enhanced ESP [and don't think that I'm not finding a sad irony in the ESP acronym in light of our current dilemma!] should include:
1) Conducting long-term environmental research and monitoring at appropriate outer Continental Shelf sites to better understand cumulative, low-level, and chronic impacts of OCS oil and gas activities on the natural and human environments; and,'Aint hindsight a bitch?!
2) Working with state environmental agencies and industry to evaluate the risks to the marine environment posed by aging offshore and onshore pipelines, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico.
As we have learned, the Minerals Management Service was hardly the fierce watchdog of the People's interest that it was established to be. The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has alleged that MMS has suffered from a systemic revolving door problem between the Department of Interior and the oil and gas industries. And MMS appears to have provided routine exemptions to oil interests from the National Environmental Policy Act's requirements of environmental risk analysis.
It wasn't until June 15, 2010, just hours before President Obama's Oval Office address to the nation on the Gulf spill, before the current Administration announced what they are calling "far-reaching changes" and funding necessary to "fix" the Minerals Management Service.
It's impossible to say how a serious consideration and implementation of the Ocean Blueprint's recommendations might have changed what we are dealing with today. We might still find ourselves mired in oily goo and facing the wholesale destruction of an ocean basin's ability to support life. But I continue to hope that someone in Washington will someday use the blueprint for more than just a doorstop. And Mr Obama, if you can't find your copy I'll be happy to loan you mine.
