Public hearing on seismic airgun surveys for oil and gas drilling, Thurs, April 29

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On March 31st, President Obama announced a plan that could lead to the opening of vast new areas along America’s coasts to destructive offshore oil and gas drilling, threatening the coastal communities of North Carolina and our fishing industry and the wildlife that makes its home in our waters.

Next Thursday (April 29th), federal officials will be in Wilmington, NC to gather public feedback on this potentially disastrous policy shift and their new plans for extensive high-intensity seismic airgun surveys in our coastal waters.

We need to send the Obama administration a loud, clear message: LEAVE NORTH CAROLINA'S COASTS ALONE.

What: Public hearing on seismic airgun surveys for oil and gas drilling
When: Thursday, April 29
First meeting: 1 p.m.
Second meeting: 7 p.m.
Where: Hilton Wilmington Riverside
301 North Water Street
Wilmington, North Carolina 28401

this is the only chance North Carolina residents will have to speak out in person against a plan that could industrialize more of our coasts, ruin our beaches and decimate local wildlife populations.

The hazards of seismic airgun surveys are well known. Airgun seismic surveys are known to significantly disrupt endangered species of whales and commercial fisheries on a massive scale. For example:

A single airgun array in the North Atlantic caused endangered fin and humpback whales to stop singing – a behavior essential to their mating and foraging – over an area at least 10-20,000 square nautical miles in size (i.e., at least the size of West Virginia).

Whales depend on sound for their survival – but airgun noise is loud enough to mask their calls over literally thousands of miles, destroying their capacity to communicate and breed. The latest science from NOAA and Cornell shows that endangered North Atlantic right whales – which calve off the coast of Georgia and Florida – are extremely vulnerable.

Airguns have been shown to drive away a wide range of marine mammals, from great baleen whales to harbor porpoises, and they have been implicated in the long-term loss of marine mammal biodiversity off the coast of Brazil.

Airgun seismic surveys mean more new offshore drilling is likely to follow, and the adverse impacts of drilling are well known:
Offshore drilling accidents and related oil spills happen with alarming frequency throughout the world, despite modern, “safe” drilling technology.

Last fall, an out-of-control blowout from a “modern” offshore platform oiled over 8,000 square miles of Australia’s lush Timor Sea for ten weeks. And just last week, at least 18,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from a broken pipeline extending from an offshore oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico through the Delta National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana. So far, about 160 square miles have been oiled by the spill, including 40 square miles of protected marshes.

For threatened and endangered sea turtles, expanded oil drilling could mean the difference between survival and extinction. Dredging of nesting beaches, collisions, and noise disruptions are all potential threats to sea turtles. Hatchlings are also particularly susceptible to oiling because they spend much of their time near the water surface, where spilled oil or tar accumulates.

Unfortunately, that’s not all that’s at stake. Seismic surveys conducted during oil and gas exploration cause temporary or permanent hearing loss, induce behavioral changes and even physically injure marine mammals like the bottlenose dolphins and rare North Atlantic right whales found off the Atlantic coastline.

Exposure to petroleum also causes tissue damage in the eyes, mouth, skin and lungs of dolphins and other marine mammals. And because they are at the top of the food chain, many marine mammals will be exposed to the dangers of bioaccumulation of organic pollutants and metals.


Respectfully,

Richard Charter
Senior Policy Advisor, Marine Programs
Defenders of Wildlife
http://www.defenders.org/