Interesting article regarding offshore oil rigs

[mohave_steve]

Stumbled across this & thought you all may find it interesting:

Drilling for oil offshore has some surprising eco-benefits





Monday, March 18, 2002
by David Rothbard and Craig Rucker


For many, the idea of off-shore oil rigs and environmental protection seem to go together like ... well, literally, oil and water. But if recent findings from the Bayou State of Louisiana are any indication, it may be such anti-oil sentiments which aren?t too factually slick.

This, according to the publication Eco-Logic, which notes that a recent study from LSU found there is an astounding 50 percent more marine life around oil platforms than around surrounding mud bottoms. Indeed, the same study showed that 85 percent of Louisiana?s fishing trips involve fishing around these very waters, which is significant when you consider that Louisiana produces one third of America?s commercial fishing!

Other interesting tid-bits about the eco-benefits of off-shore rigs:

Most of America?s spear fishing records were winched aboard around these platforms.

Commercial fishing vessels from Taiwan and Japan venture far in order to fish Louisiana?s waters

Louisiana started a ?Rigs to Reefs? program which pays companies to keep the platforms in the gulf. Other states may be following suit.

There has never been an oil spill from these rigs ? not even one!

Indeed, so impressive are the eco-benefits from such oil rig platforms that Louisiana Fish and Wildlife officials have been invited to Australia to help them implement a similar program ? this is noteworthy, especially from a nation that boasts one of the world?s top dive destinations in the Great Barrier Reef!

Only time will tell whether or not skeptics will ultimately welcome this gusher of good news surrounding off-shore oil rigs!

[mohave_steve]

The benefits of the artificial habitat created are quite obvious to me but some of the "facts" presented don't hold up. There have bee two oil spills from offshore rigs that I can find. One off of Santa Barbara in 1969 and one off of Newfoundland in 2004.

[robertarak]

But not in Louisiana. This seems to be a report about the Louisiana rigs and my guess is he is only re-stating what he read in, "the publication Eco-Logic". Reporters have a unigue way of rewriting each others work and taking credit for it.

[drbill]

Dr. Milton Love from UCSB has found similar "enrichment" of biodiversity around oil rigs off California. While the data may be accurate (as far as more species are concerned), the biodiversity itself is a bit artificial in that the species around the rigs are not those that would naturally be found where the oil rigs are unless similar vertical structure (say rocky reefs) were present.

I find the "communities" around and on oil rigs to be a somewhat artificial assemblage of species. This is not to say definitively that such habitats are "bad" or "good." However, the presence of oil rigs, especially in fairly large numbers as off Louisiana (but not here off California), really does nothing more than convert ecosystems from the naturally existing soft bottom communities to an artificial one of hard bottom communities.

That a state would PAY an oil company to leave the rigs in place amazes me. My understanding was that the oil companies were mandated to remove these rigs, at their cost, when their useful lifetime was over.

My position is that IF the oil companies realize substantial savings by not having to pay for decommissioning, then they should at least be required to use a percentage of those savings to fund ecosystem recovery, especially in areas affected by oil spills. I don't mind that they save some money in the process... a shame they probably won't pass it on to us, the consumer.

[robertarak]

<snip> IF the oil companies realize substantial savings by not having to pay for decommissioning, then they should at least be required to use a percentage of those savings to fund ecosystem recovery, <snip>

Now that is a GREAT idea!

[DeepSeaExplorer]

Typical flawed logic...

Just like artificial reefs, oil rigs only concentrate marine life by pulling it from the surrounding environment, thus making it easier to harvest. Naturally, this concentration of marine life would then attract large game fish too.

[Wookie]

The state does not pay to leave oil platforms in place. The oil companies are allowed to reef the platforms if they choose, must move the platforms to the reef site, and donate to the state 1/2 the savings they realized by not moving the platform to shore. That money is used for fisheries management, and to prep ships and other items for becoming artificial reefs. Reefed oil structures typically make for lousy diving, unless you are a spearfisherman, due to the minimum 85 foot depth required by the USCG in the Gulf of Mexico. Any structure shallower than 85 feet must be permenantly buoyed, and the vis is usually so bad on those structures that you wouldn't want to dive them anyway.

[covediver]

Typical flawed logic...

Just like artificial reefs, oil rigs only concentrate marine life by pulling it from the surrounding environment, thus making it easier to harvest. Naturally, this concentration of marine life would then attract large game fish too.

This statement is a reflection of the "attraction versus production" hypothesis. Oversimplified, that is, do artificial reefs merely attract surrounding marine life building a better barrel in which to shoot fish in or do they actually increase production leading to increased biomass. Your statement is a simplistic reflection of the attraction side of the hypothesis. In nature, things are not that simple. A two-word response is "it depends" and Dr. Milton Love has done some amazing work as have many researchers in California and other places. I had a friend who worked on this problem long before it was applied to platforms and the science is pretty amazing, just working through research design to assure reliability and validity is pretty neat stuff.

I think Dr. Bill's perspective is fairly accurate. I guess I would expand the discussion by asking "how long does something have to be in existence before it moves from "artificial" to "real"? Even if it is real, is it proper to "fake nature" that is, does the ability to create artificial reefs as good as the original reduce the obligation to avoid impacts in the first place? But these are philosophical arguements best discussed over Antonio's by the Beach over beer and pizza just before karioke after a wonderful day of diving in the marine park at Avalon, itself an artificial reef created by the emplacement of the breakwater.

[DeepSeaExplorer]

This statement is a reflection of the "attraction versus production" hypothesis. Oversimplified, that is, do artificial reefs merely attract surrounding marine life building a better barrel in which to shoot fish in or do they actually increase production leading to increased biomass. Your statement is a simplistic reflection of the attraction side of the hypothesis. In nature, things are not that simple. A two-word response is "it depends" and Dr. Milton Love has done some amazing work as have many researchers in California and other places. I had a friend who worked on this problem long before it was applied to platforms and the science is pretty amazing, just working through research design to assure reliability and validity is pretty neat stuff.

I think Dr. Bill's perspective is fairly accurate. I guess I would expand the discussion by asking "how long does something have to be in existence before it moves from "artificial" to "real"? Even if it is real, is it proper to "fake nature" that is, does the ability to create artificial reefs as good as the original reduce the obligation to avoid impacts in the first place? But these are philosophical arguements best discussed over Antonio's by the Beach over beer and pizza just before karioke after a wonderful day of diving in the marine park at Avalon, itself an artificial reef created by the emplacement of the breakwater.

I think you have to be very careful when profit motive is involved. In this case, it's an oil company that wants to avoid the costs associated with proper dismantling and disposal of the rig.

The problem is where do you draw the line? There was an effort here a few years back to dump 55 gallon drums in the ocean under the pretense that it would create a fish habitat. Fortunately, everyone could see that was an attempt to dump trash on the cheap. But, sometimes it's not so obvious...

Will the marine life take advantage of trash dumped in the ocean? You bet it will. Every beer bottle will have a blenny in it. Does that mean we should throw our beer bottles in the ocean because it's good for the environment?

There's also another side to this concentration problem - people. Concentrating the marine life also makes it more vulnerable to human impact.

[drbill]

Would have to disagree in part with the "attraction" statement suggested by DeepSeaExplorer. If the habitat in the region of the rig is a soft bottom one (mud or sand for example), many naturally occurring species would most likely not shift to the oil rig and thereby concentrate because it represents a hard bottom habitat.

Much of the fauna of soft bottom communities is infauna (burrowing into the substrate) or resting on the bottom unattached. They are not likely to be attracted to a hard substrate that they can't burrow into or would have to attach to. Other life forms that attach to or crawl over hard bottoms would settle there. Of course this relates largely to invertebrates.

Fish on the other hand may be attracted to the rigs because they provide three dimensional relief. They may be present over soft bottom communities or hard bottom. Therefore they may congregate over reefs in greater numbers than they would otherwise.

Covediver... I'd add a warm shower to that scenario, although I have been known to walk around town in my wetsuit all day or go dancing in it after drinking a buffalo milk or two following a dive!