Save the Gulf from Our Oil Addiction
Trump’s offshore plans mean more killing, spilling, pollution and extreme storms in Gulf of Mexico
The numbers tell the story: More than 50,000 offshore oil and gas wells have been drilled in the Gulf of Mexico, and more than 7,000 platforms installed, 2,634 of those active at last count. Oil spills and toxic wastewater from those wells pollute these biologically rich waters on a daily basis, with 75 billion gallons of wastewater dumped in 2014 alone.
The Gulf of Mexico is being sacrificed to our addiction to oil.
The Trump administration doubled-down on the devastation on March 21 in New Orleans with the largest fossil fuel lease-sale of federal waters in U.S. history, offering more than 77 million acres throughout the Gulf to the oil and gas industry. Drilling even a fraction of that acreage would guarantee generations more of regular oil spills and wastewater dumping that is marinating Gulf marine wildlife in dangerous chemicals.
Our oil dependence has taken a deadly toll on the Gulf. Eleven oil workers died during the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and thousands of marine animals died during the resulting oil spill that continued for three months afterward.
Dolphins and other Gulf marine life still haven’t recovered, with studies finding stunted reproduction due to oil and dispersant pollution that still lines the sea floor. The Coast Guard first responders to that sickening disaster also reported a variety of debilitating health problems.
But as dramatic as that 2010 disaster was, it was just an extreme example of the routine death and damage caused by offshore drilling. The US. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 128 deaths in the U.S. offshore drilling industry 2003–2010, a rate of worker death seven times higher than the national average.
The Deepwater Horizon’s gusher of more than 210 million gallons of oil was catastrophic and may have forever changed the Gulf ecosystem. But oil spills small and large are routine costs of doing this dirty and dangerous business, which will only get more dangerous as the Trump administration tries to repeal drilling safety regulations enacted after Deepwater Horizon.
We at the Center for Biological Diversity calculated that leasing all the Gulf waters being offered to the oil industry by the Trump administration in its March lease sale could result in about 2,700 oil spills in the central and western Gulf, spilling more than 16.7 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. That’s based on industry data collected from 1974 to 2015, excluding Deepwater Horizon and other catastrophic spills that are always a threat.
Fracking fluid and other oil wastewater is also polluting the Gulf with disgusting regularity and it’s taking a serious toll on marine life. How badly are whales, sea turtles and other marine animals being harmed? The federal government doesn’t know because it has refused to study it, a violation of federal environmental law that caused us to sue the Trump administration last month.
Gulf Coast residents are being hurt by this industry, particularly the communities of color who live near onshore oil and gas processing facilities, where high rates of cancer, respiratory illness and other ailments are a public health crisis that will only worsen if we allow offshore drilling to expand.
These are just some of the costs Gulf residents and wildlife will pay for Trump’s refusal to accept the urgent need for a transition to clean energy. While other countries and industries are moving beyond the age of oil, Trump and his industry-sponsored appointees want to lock in our oil dependence with decades of new offshore oil drilling, miring us in the past while the rest of the world moves into a clean-energy future.
Trump and the oil industry want to invite more extreme storms and surging seas to pummel a Louisiana coastline no longer protected by wetlands thanks to oil industry pipeline dredging and coastal industrialization.
But it’s a fate that we should all resist.
