Blackout: Pelosi turns off the lights as GOP demands action on drilling; Update: Video added; Update: Protest ends — with “God Bless America”

Where’s Michelle? Doesn’t she or Mark Levin or Laura Ingraham live in the DC area?

Dr.Cwac.Cwac on August 1, 2008 at 2:32 PM

Home nursing their MDS?

funky chicken on August 1, 2008 at 2:39 PM

The Gulf of Mexico lacks natural reefs. Not long after platforms first appeared in the Gulf, fishermen found that they caught more fish near platforms. Subsequent research found that the platforms act as artificial reefs, attracting and enhancing fish populations.

A MMS report by the Minerals Management Service (MMS) found that fish densities are 20 to 50 times higher near offshore platforms than in nearby open water. As many as 70 percent of offshore fishing trips have the area around offshore platforms as their destination.

As offshore platforms reach the end of their useful lives, fishermen and marine biologists expressed concern about the loss of the enhanced fish habitat they create. Until the mid-1980s, platforms had to be completely removed at the end of their productive life, disrupting the thriving communities that had been created beneath the platform. In 1986, the National Marine Fisheries Service developed a plan for the creation of artificial reefs. Following up on the concerns expressed, the MMS adopted a rigs-to-reefs policy that supports and encourages the reuse of these structures in the development of artificial reefs.

Coastal states that elect to do so may establish artificial reef programs. MMS then allows oil and gas operators to work with the states to determine whether they are interested in using an oil or natural gas program that is about to be decommissioned as an artificial reef. Instead of complete removal, MMS will allow an approved state to accept the platform for use in creation of an artificial reef. Sometimes platforms are toppled in place, and sometimes they are towed to an alternate location and sunk there to create an artificial reef. The company donating the platform to the state also agrees to give the state a cash donation equal to 50 percent of the savings to the company over the cost of removal. The state takes title to the structure and accepts responsibility for it as a permanent state reef. The funds contributed by the companies are used for long-term maintenance of the reef.

By November 2000, 151 platforms have been recycled as artificial reefs in the Gulf of Mexico (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida). California does not currently have a rigs-to-reefs program, but has been considering authorizing one. As production from older platforms continues to decline, the number of platform structures that need to be removed and could possibly be used as artificial reefs is growing. MMS has estimated that more than 100 platforms annually will be removed in the Gulf of Mexico.

http://www.api.org/aboutoilgas/sectors/explore/rigstoreef.cfm

Yep, that offshore drilling just destroys the environment.

funky chicken on August 1, 2008 at 3:05 PM

Fish a factor in what to do with offshore oil rigs
Industry notes fish like artificial reefs, activists say they aren’t habitat

At Platform Gail, which stands in 739 feet of water nine miles off the Ventura coast, Love found what he believes to be the highest density of two species of overfished rockfish in Southern California.

Love stresses that his research doesn’t draw conclusions about whether the platforms should be removed. What’s irrefutable, he says, is that some platforms are surrounded with fish packed as tightly as “cocktail wieners in a can.”

Industry funds some research
Love gets about 80 percent of his research money from the government, and the rest from the California Artificial Reef Enhancement Program, a Sacramento nonprofit group funded almost entirely by oil companies. The group has contributed about $100,000 a year to Love’s research since 1999, executive director George Steinbach said.

Love says no amount of oil industry money can sway his research — fish either cluster at the platforms or they don’t. And because they do, his personal view is that the rigs should stay in place, cut below the waterline so that ships can pass safely over them.

“It’s immoral to kill large numbers of animals anywhere on earth, and if you remove a platform you’ll kill many millions of animals,” he says.
Proposals to keep the platforms are modeled on programs in the Gulf of Mexico, where more than 200 rigs have been converted into artificial reefs either by toppling them or by cutting them below the waterline.

Krop, the environmental lawyer, says rig-to-reef conversions make more sense in the Gulf of Mexico because the waters there have a mud bottom, not natural reefs.

Converting platforms between Long Beach and Point Conception north of Santa Barbara could be $600 million to $1 billion cheaper than removing them, Steinbach said. In exchange for letting the rigs stay, Steinbach said, oil companies would contribute up to half their savings to state conservation programs.

Widespread opposition from environmentalists and residents has killed legislation that would have allowed such a deal.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This

funky chicken on August 1, 2008 at 3:09 PM