An oiled pelican on the Gulf Coast (©Krista Schyler/Defenders of Wildlife)

Laurie Macdonald, Florida Program Director

This Saturday, April 20th, will mark the third anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. By Earth Day 2010, we had learned the terrible news that 11 men had died in an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig and we hoped an environmental crisis was not going to follow.

But follow it did. Over 200 million gallons of oil spewed from a failed drilling operation nearly a mile below the ocean surface: hot, highly pressurized petroleum hydrocarbons that had been stewing for millions of years. In the days that turned into months of frantic work to seal the well, the oil and attempts to contain it caused direct and long term damage to wildlife and their habitat, including an unknown number of deaths.

How can there be restitution for such an assault on the precious and extensive resources of the Gulf? How can the environmental losses be restored and the related economic losses be compensated? Sea turtles, whales and dolphins surfacing to breathe and sea birds resting or diving into the ocean were covered with oil. Seahorses and juvenile sea turtles living in the floating sargassum seaweed mats were killed when the mats were showered with dispersants and burned. Below the surface, deep sea coral colonies and shallow seagrass beds died due to the toxic combination of dispersants and oil. And on the beach, shorebird nests and chicks were trampled and scraped away by uninformed workers during cleanup operations, while heavy equipment and lights disturbed and harmed wildlife. Every part of the Gulf was affected by the spill, from its shores to the sea floor. People dependent upon marine resources, from shrimpers to hotel and restaurant owners, lost significant livelihood, and some of those living along the affected areas suffer ongoing illnesses.

Oil floats in the water off the coast of Louisiana. (©Krista Schyler/Defenders of Wildlife)

A complex combination of legislation and lawsuits is causing the responsible parties, British Petroleum (BP) and others, to pay significant costs and fines. Penalties under the RESTORE Act passed by Congress on June 29, 2012 will make $4 billion available for restoration and improvement of the Gulf and for the people that suffered losses due to the spill. The RESTORE Act ensures that 80 percent of Deepwater Horizon civil and administrative penalties under the Clean Water Act will go to Gulf Coast restoration, and sets up a framework that can ensure coordination between the Gulf States and the Federal government.

Defenders’ Florida Representative Elizabeth Fleming and I recently attended a public meeting of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, which is evaluating which projects are most important to fund. The meeting was held to listen to information from the public about what actions we believed would be of the greatest benefit to the Gulf.

On behalf of Defenders, I presented a report that we produced with the National Wildlife Refuge Association that describes tracts of conservation land along the Gulf Coast and connections inland that should be acquired and added to the refuge system. This will protect wildlife habitat and help wildlife adapt to the impacts we are experiencing as a result of climate change and sea level rise. Examples include expanding the Gulf Islands National Seashore to protect sea turtle nesting beaches as well as people’s access to the coastline, and adding to the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge to complete the ocean-to-inland connection that wildlife will need to rely on as they adapt to climate change.

Shorebirds like this rely on the beaches affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill (©Krista Schyler/Defenders of Wildlife)

I pointed out three principles that I think should guide the decisions on how to spend the restoration funds. First, all projects, including those not focused on the environment (boat ramps and the like) must result in ecosystem benefits. Second, all projects should also take climate change and sea level rise into consideration. And lastly, the most important action we can take is to acquire valuable conservation areas that add to our system of natural resource lands and wildlife habitat.

Author Carl Safina in his book “A Sea in Flames,” closes with an observation on northern gannets — large, shining white seabirds that migrate from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico for the winter. Gannets dive for their prey and so they are directly affected by oil adhering to their bodies and by eating contaminated fish. Safina remarks that the first oiled bird whose image was in the news during the Gulf oil disaster was a gannet, and that seabird biologists speculated that up to a third of the population would be affected. The gannet already faces a host of threats near its breeding grounds, and is now suffering the impacts of the oil spill even 2,000 miles away, where it spends the off-season.

It is clear that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will continue to affect wildlife and habitat for years to come. Our job now is to help our damaged Gulf regain its health with carefully planned, enduring restoration work.

The problems began last Thursday, when the Kulluk, a conical Arctic drilling ship on its way to Seattle for repairs, broke away from its towing vessel and was set adrift.  Things only got worse from there:  The tow vessel, Aiviq, lost function in all four of its engines due to mechanical issues.  This is the vessel Shell heralded as a symbol of its commitment to doing things right in the Arctic. It is the vessel company president and CEO Gary Chouest described as “the world’s largest and most powerful anchor-handling icebreaker.”  It was designed to operate in minus-40 degrees and is apparently a state of the art vessel. And yet it could not keep control of Kulluk.  As winter seas continued to pummel the drill ship and its now two attendant tow vessels, the Coast Guard was called in to evacuate all of the Kulluk’s crew members.

But the Kulluk wasn’t just carrying crew members.  While the ship pitched up and down in the icy waters, about 150,000 gallons of fuel were sloshing around inside it, too, in the form of sulfur diesel, hydraulic fluid, and lube oil.  In effect, the Kulluk was an oil spill waiting to happen.

By Monday afternoon, the Kulluk was reattached to a repaired Aiviq and a new tow vessel, Alert. The ships were headed for safe port in Kodiak to weather the storm.  But the relentlessly rough water separated the Kulluk from the Aiviq, forcing the crew of the Alert to sever their line, as well.  Kulluk was adrift again, and this time, grounding was all but inevitable.  The ship ran aground around 9 pm on New Year’s Eve on a small island off the coast of Kodiak.

As of this writing, there have been no reports of leakage from the ship or oil sheen on the water.  But the event serves to remind us that drilling attempts in the Arctic will be costly and difficult at best and an environmental tragedy at worst.

Polar bears and other large mammals could suffer damage to their eyes, mouth, skin and lungs from petroleum exposure. Like bird feathers, polar bear fur loses its insulating and water-repelling properties when coated with oil.

This time, the Kodiak Coast Guard station was close enough to respond quickly, with plenty of helping hands and the right equipment. The Coast Guard station can also provide a base for personnel to coordinate efforts or to hunker down when the weather gets too bad to send response vessels.   But the drill sites in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas are over 1,000 miles away from Kodiak, and there’s no Coast Guard station nearer than that.  Shell claims their spill response ship Arctic Challenger can contain an underwater leak, but external support could take days or weeks to reach an out of control vessel, or even worse, a spill.

If something like the 2010 BP Oil Spill were to occur in the Arctic Ocean, the environmental damage would be truly unimaginable: iconic arctic species like whales, polar bears and walruses could all suffer. There is also a huge risk of damaging the intricate and pristine ecology of the Arctic Ocean in ways we don’t fully understand yet.  Combine that with the danger to spill response crews, and it’s hard to believe Shell is willing to risk drilling in the Arctic Ocean at all.

This latest fiasco with the Kulluk could have been a New Year’s oil spill.  The incident surely shows that Shell, even with state of the art equipment, cannot  prevent accidents in the remote Arctic. We can only hope that this and Shell’s other recent travails will convince lawmakers and the administration to put an end to offshore drilling in the Arctic before it’s too late.

I congratulate the President on his victory and am excited to work with him and his administration in the coming months and years. There is a lot of work to do to protect our natural heritage for future generations and hopefully we can now collectively return our attention to meaningful progress on a whole host of issues.

First and foremost is the so-called fiscal cliff. Many programs will be hurt by the looming spending cuts, and conservation programs are no exception. Everything from national parks and forests to wildlife refuges and other public lands could be threatened. I am confident that the president shares our sense of urgency on this matter and will do all he can to find a balanced solution in the face of these potentially devastating cuts.

Once we address the fiscal cliff, we desperately need to tackle climate change. This is the most pressing issue in our country, and we cannot wait any longer. We need swift action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and new policies that will help humans and wildlife adapt to our rapidly changing environment.

We also need to seriously address the threat of wildlife extinction. The Endangered Species Act once served as a model for a world struggling with widespread extinction; now it suffers from inadequate enforcement, chronic underfunding and a hostile political environment. These things have to change before more species sink forever into the abyss of extinction. Most importantly, while the ESA has proven to be a highly effective bulwark against extinction, we need the Administration to accelerate the recovery of hundreds of species that are in urgent need of more focused conservation efforts.

Furthermore, the President should reaffirm his past promise to let science guide natural resource policy in his administration. Important conservation policy decisions need to be grounded in and guided by science, and not be driven by what is politically expedient. That should be something we all agree upon.

Lastly, the President should continue his push to wean our country off outdated, dirty energy sources like oil, gas and coal, and focus on 21st century clean energy solutions. But we need to make sure we do this in a smart way that doesn’t destroy important wildlife or habitat resources.

There is so much work to be done to protect and restore our air, land, water and wildlife for future generations. The president has run his last campaign, and it is our hope that, freed from the bonds of politics, he will be a real conservation leader as we strive to protect our natural heritage. At Defenders, we stand ready to work with him as we face the challenges ahead.

The Chukchi Sea is home to many imperiled species, such as bowhead whales, Pacific walrus, and polar bears, a species already facing enormous challenges due to melting sea ice, one of the many effects of climate change.  A major oil spill here could be even more destructive to wildlife than the Gulf oil spill of 2010, because a cleanup response would be nearly impossible to perform.  Here’s why:

The threatened Steller’s eider, a seasonal visitor to the Chukchi. Birds suffer heavily in oiled waters: the oil on their feathers destroys their insulation from the cold, and makes them sick when they try to clean themselves.

Infrastructure.  The nearest coast guard station is in Kodiak, Alaska, more than 1000 miles away.  The closest village to the Chukchi Sea drilling site has just one small boat ramp and no hotels to accommodate cleanup crews.  The nearest airports that can handle the large cargo planes needed to transport oil cleanup equipment are 100 miles away or more.

Weather.  The Chukchi Sea is almost completely covered in ice over the winter months.  In summer, 20-foot swells, gale force winds and thick, lingering fog is common.  Stormy seas would endanger the lives of crew members and render oil booms and skimmer boats useless.  It can take weeks or months for backup rigs to drill relief wells, even in the relatively calm waters of the Gulf; in the Chukchi Sea, it may take even longer.  Worst of all, if an oil well breaks open and can’t be capped by the end of the summer, it will gush into the sea for months beneath the Chukchi Sea’s winter ice pack.

Temperature.  The temperature of Arctic seawater is often far below freezing, making it difficult to burn off oil because the water below the surface-oil cannot be heated sufficiently to start the burn.  Oil dispersant chemicals are known to be ineffective in cold temperatures, in addition to the potential harmful effects they could have on marine life.  Finally, oil simply takes longer to break down in cold temperatures.

A Fragile Ecosystem.

Polar bears are already stressed by the loss of sea ice they use to hunt due to climate change.  A major oil spill would jeopardize their food supply even more.  Photo (c) Joan Cambray.

The Chukchi Sea supports an intricate and delicate web of life. It provides critical food sources for migratory birds from around the world and pristine waters for important parts of the life cycle of many fish species. Every part of this ecosystem, from the tiniest zooplankton to the greatest bowhead whale, would be threatened by an oil spill in the Chukchi.  As the Defenders of Wildlife Fact Sheet on drilling in the Arctic details,

 “exposure to oil damages the eyes, mouth, skin and lungs of marine mammals and reduces the insulating effect of feathers on birds. Wild animals can also suffer from kidney failure after ingesting oil in attempts to clean themselves. Those animals that manage to survive will still be at risk from accumulating pollutants and metals in their bodies from the fish they eat. They may also suffer from starvation as the food chain they rely on for survival is disrupted.”

Even without a spill, noise and toxic pollution that are a normal part of industrial drilling will negatively impact local wildlife.  There is also so much about the arctic ecosystem of the Chukchi that we just don’t know anything about.  In its review of drilling plans the government admitted to a complete lack of information on key wildlife populations and their use of the Chukchi, but approved Shell’s drilling plans anyway.    The fact is that the Chukchi Sea is one of the last places any oil company should be allowed to drill.

Noise from drilling rigs disturbs marine mammals like these bowhead whales, which depend on echolocation to navigate the icy waters of the Chukchi.

Ironically, Shell was only able to drill for one day before a large ice floe forced it to back off the drill site. This should be a warning cry about the hazards of drilling in the Chukchi Sea.

We must not let our thirst for oil put yet another rich and vibrant ecosystem at risk of an environmental catastrophe, especially when this time, if an oil spill happens, cleanup will be virtually impossible.  Only time will tell if Alaskan wildlife can weather this latest threat to their survival.

UPDATE 9/17/12:  Shell’s oil containment barge suffered damage to its oil containment dome during testing, causing the company to scrap efforts to drill in the Chukchi until next year.  The barge had been previously plagued with leaks and safety standard issues, and has been unable to reach Coast Guard certification.  The threat of an oil spill has subsided-for now-but this fragile place will be in danger once more if drilling resumes in 2013.

The Arctic’s Beaufort Sea, NOAA

NEWS: The Interior Department released its 5-year offshore drilling plan yesterday, which includes plans to open more of the Arctic Ocean to offshore drilling.

The following is a statement from Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife:

“Despite presiding over the worst oil disaster in U.S. history and on the heels of green lighting Shell’s exploration in Arctic waters this summer, the Obama administration is now planning additional leasing in one of the most pristine, but least understood waters in the world without basic scientific information about its wildlife. Apparently, the lesson from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill has not soaked in to the Obama administration — there’s no foolproof way to drill safely in remote, environmentally sensitive areas like the Arctic Ocean.”

According to the latest AP report, the lingering effects are still taking a toll on fishermen in the Gulf, who are seeing much smaller catches in some areas. In the Barataria estuary, for example, the shrimp haul for last fall was down nearly 40 percent while the crab harvest was down nearly 30 percent.

High seafood prices have helped compensate for the shortfall to some extent, and some are blaming high water in the Mississippi River and drought in Texas in addition to residual oil. But it’s clear that we haven’t seen the last of the devastation from the spill.

It’s vital that we keep the BP disaster in mind, especially now that the Obama administration has agreed to let Shell drill in the Arctic this summer. Polar bears, whales and countless other species could be at serious risk from yet another oil spill that could be even more deadly than the BP spill in the Gulf.

See how Defenders is working to protect wildlife and natural habitats from the dangers of offshore drilling.

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