Coastal Commission Approves Halliburton's Plan

Blow Up an Offshore Oil Platform?

by Mark Massara

At their meeting in Monterey the Coastal Commission was presented with a very unusual proposition. Arco Oil Company, the former owner of an aging, derelict offshore oil platform originally constructed in the 1930s sought to remove the platform, as required by law.

In fact, Arco had sought to remove the platform in 2000, decades after they had abandoned its use and decades after they should have removed it.

However, by 2000 the platform had become the favorite hangout of endangered California brown pelicans, Brandt's cormorants and double-crested cormorants. Thus, California Department of Fish & Game (DFG) opposed the proposed removal on the grounds that it might adversely impact the birds.

So the oil guys and the government guys put their heads together and decided to hire US Vice President Dick Cheney's old firm, Halliburton, Inc. to blow up the platform, and then dump more rocks on the exploded debris, and contour the entire mess to make an artificial reef. On top of the reef, they decided, they would build bird platforms. They believe it will work, that if will attract birds, or that birds surviving the attack on the platform will return.

Coastal Staff recommended the Commission approve the project, and their analysis is at www.coastal.ca.gov/energy/W6b-2-2005.pdf

Santa Barbara County, the Santa Barbara Environmental Defense Center (EDC) and the Sierra Club all opposed the project, albeit for slightly different reasons.

Santa Barbara County officials and EDC opposed the project because it is unprecedented, and because they found that the underlying environmental data is insufficient to show that blowing up the platform and building a new one might possibly be something that brown pelicans or other birds would find attractive or useful. In other words, the popularity of the proposed plan appears to reside more in the minds of the applicants than in any science showing it will work. It took 40 years for the birds to colonize the platform, Santa Barbara County representatives told the Commission, here you have a monitoring plan that is only for five years.

Sierra Club, on the other hand, opposed the project solely upon the basis of opposition to blowing up coastal resources in an attempt to save them. Finding the notion completely bankrupt, the Sierra Club remains opposed to exploding coastal resources, especially in a case such as this, where the derelict platform is performing perfectly as a pelican roost site and where the new-fangled blown up structure offers no guarantees whatsoever beyond the fact that all marine life in the area on the day of the blast will certainly be killed or maimed in the attack.

Commissioner Dan Secord initiated the Commission's discussion by saying, "I don't feel the objections are compelling. Perhaps some of the emphasis here is on punishment and not adaptive reuse."

Commissioner Mary Shallenberger said, "I find this proposal very troubling. How do you determine success at the end of five years? What is the environmental impact of taking this down? Will the company be responsible for the loss of a site if we destroy this one and the new one fails?"

Coastal staff said that the question of the success of the new platform could not be determined. "The plan is that after five years we'll take a look. If there is disagreement between the parties, it will come back to the Commission."

With little further discussion the Commission approved the project. Commissioner Scott Peters moved for the approval and Commissioner Reilly provided the second. The Commission then voted 9-3 for the project, with Commissioners Neely, Potter, Secord, Wan, Caldwell, Kruer, Reilly, Peters and Iseman in favor, and Commissioners Kram, Burke and Shallenberger opposed.

(Mark Massara is the Director of the Sierra Club Coastal Program)