https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/18/health/offshore-drilling-study/index.html
[links in online article]
Report finds 'alarming unaddressed deficiencies' in US offshore oil drilling
By Jen Christensen, CNN
Updated 4:01 AM ET, Thu April 18, 2019
(CNN)Even as the Trump administration has taken steps to expand
offshore oil drilling, a new report shows that thousands of oil spills
are still happening and that workers in the oil and gas industry are
still dying on the job.
The report comes from Oceana, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to
protecting and restoring the oceans, which has sued the federal
government to stop seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean. The
blasting is the first step needed to allow offshore drilling, when
seismic airguns are used to find oil and gas deep under the ocean.
Every state along the Atlantic coast has opposed the blasting, worried
that spills could hurt tourism and local fisheries. Some scientists say
the testing could also hurt marine life, including the highly endangered
North Atlantic right whale.
The group tied its report, released Thursday, to the ninth anniversary
of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill to show what has been happening
since the government promised to hold the industry accountable to higher
safety standards.
That 2010 spill was one of the worst in US history, killing 11 people
and dumping more than 210 million gallons of oil into the ocean,
polluting over 1,300 miles of shoreline, killing wildlife and hurting
human health. In the lawsuit that followed, a federal judge said the
companies involved in the spill were "grossly negligent" in the runup to
the disaster.
Using public records and interviews with people in the field, Oceana
found that although there hasn't been another big blowout like the
Deepwater accident, oil spills continue, and so do fatalities, though
they're not often front-page news.
There were at least 6,500 oil spills in US waters between 2007 and 2017,
according to the report, which said that's probably an undercount.
Despite a decrease in fatality rates overall as an industry, according
to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the fatality rate
of oil and gas industry workers, onshore and off-, was an average of
seven times higher than that of other US workers in general between 2003
and 2013.
At the time of the Deepwater disaster, the US oil and gas industry had
reported one of the highest fatality rates as compared to other
oil-producing countries.
"Almost 10 years after the BP Deepwater oil spill, offshore drilling is
just as dirty and dangerous, despite pledges otherwise," said Diane
Hoskins, Oceana's campaign director. "There is still this unacceptable
risk of devastating oil spills, and yet there is this call from the
Trump administration to expand drilling to new areas and a call to
abandon or weaken safety regulations. We should not be expanding drilling."
The United States is already the world's largest exporter of refined
petroleum products, but the Trump administration has pushed for more. In
April, Trump signed executive orders, which he called "Unleashing
American Energy," that make it easier for companies to build gas and oil
pipeline projects and make it harder for states to stop them.
He's revoked an order that banned oil and gas drilling in the Arctic, as
well as the Atlantic, although that's tied up in the courts. A judge
also ruled against the administration's approval of natural gas drilling
plans on public lands in Colorado.
As part of its call for action, Oceana wants the US government to
increase inspections. As of 2018, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental
Enforcement employs about 120 inspectors to conduct more than 20,000
inspections, the report found.
Fines are based on spill amounts that are generally estimated by the
company and are often under-reported, studies have found. Civil
penalties for violating offshore operating requirements are capped at
$44,675 per day per violation.
"That's a rounding error when you know that operating costs can be about
$1 million per day," Hoskins said. "Fines need to be higher."
The report also calls on the government to reduce its reliance on
research and standards written by the oil industry.
There have been some improvements in industry-written research since the
disaster, noted CJ Beegle-Krause, an expert on the oil industry who has
worked for private industry, independent research organizations and in
government research. She is not affiliated with the Oceana report. When
it comes to transparency, for example, all industry projects require
companies to publish details about their work in peer-reviewed
scientific journals.
"The science is coming out and being reviewed, and that transparency has
changed since the Deepwater Horizon," Beegle-Krause said. "Where my
thinking comes from is that you need government, industry and academics
working together from different viewpoints, to provide balance in terms
of perspective. Each know quite a bit about oil and the environment, and
working together, you get much better results."
Is the industry safer now than before the spill? "That is not an easy
question to answer," Beegle-Krause said, but it's in the industry's best
interest to keep people safe and avoid accidents.
Hoskins is certain that more needs to be done to prevent spills and make
the industry safer.
"The facts are clear, and the anniversary is a painful reminder of what
is at stake," she said. "We hope President Trump and the Department of
Interior listen to this report."
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