Rigging The System: Relief for The Reef?
California’s coastline comes to life at night as brilliant offshore giants gleam in the night sky. For decades now, over twenty-seven oil platforms have called the California coastline home. They have been at the center of contentious debate for decades raising national concerns about the environmental impacts of offshore drilling. California is in a unique positon on the national stage as “its inhabitants and neighbors are a highly-politicized population, the first to see that a problem exists, the first to wrestle with it and forge innovative solutions”[1]
California was one of the first states to bolster the production of offshore oil platforms, also known as oil rigs. Their production boomed in the 1960s, signaling a great time in California’s fuel production history offshore. For almost a decade, oil usage rose to new heights as it brilliantly lit the night sky and warmed the engines of people across the state, but the flood of new oil production in California came to a bitter end following one of the worst oil disasters in U.S. history — the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969.
The result of the Santa Barbara oil spill included the release of three million gallons of crude oil that washed across millions of pristine beaches and marshes threatening the lives of thousands of marine organisms[2]. Santa Barbara residents treasured their beaches and the Pacific Ocean, they were determined to preserve it[3]. Concerned coastal residents, alongside legislators, fought against the oil industry for a ban on offshore oil drilling. As a result, a ban on new platforms was established and to the benefit of local communities, no additional platforms could legally be installed. In the decades that followed, the twenty-seven existing platforms have come under continued scrutiny, with residents pushing for regulations due to concern about the over 44 oil spills, each having spilled over 420,000 gallons of crude oil, devastating the coastline since 1969[4].
Coastal residents have become increasingly concerned over the welfare of their beaches and the lack of governmental regulation on the oil industry that threatens not only their beaches but the ideal aspects of their lives that are tightly coupled to their sense of identity. The underlying resentment about the issue has transpired for decades: residents are eagerly awaiting the inevitable death of the existing offshore oil platforms[5], as operations at these platforms begin to dwindle amid economic and social pressures. Many current regulations require the platforms be fully removed following the end of their use[6]. More research is going into studying the material impacts of these oil platforms, and what the future impacts of their removal might mean for the ecosystem.
Recent research published by Occidental College and the University of California, Santa Barbara dictates that, “Oil platforms off California are among the most productive marine fish habitats globally”, further complicating the issue of oil on the coast of California[7]. Residents critical of the Rigs to Reef imitative, an “alternative to complete rig removal in which an oil company chooses to modify a platform so that it can continue to support marine life as an artificial reef”[8], are skeptical about the impact this strategy will have on the material health of the ecosystem and raise questions about complying with regulations in addition to holding large oil companies accountable for cleanup. Debate has ensued since then about whether all of these platforms should be fully removed, or if the rigs should be partially preserved as fish habitats and artificial reefs. The issues associated with enacting a Rigs to Reef policy reaches farther than their reverence for the material environmental concerns.
For local communities, like Santa Barbara, who hold the natural ecosystem services and natural aesthetic value close to their hearts, “Santa Barbara has never been the same”[9]. The threat oil producers pose on California’s beaches is nominal to the threat they pose on the ideal aspects of their lives: their relationships, values, and stories.
The complete removal of the structures would signal a new period of opportunity for fish populations and habitats to return to their natural state, while also signaling a chance for California to further itself from its fossil fuel dependent past. Engaging both the citizen’s concerns with aligning their material concerns, the physical and tangible aspects of their world, as well as the ideal, their values.
In addition to the material significance of removing these platforms, the complete removal of oil platforms would signify a means of upholding Californian’s values of accountability and environmental responsibility, holding oil companies accountable for their actions[10]. As John Hocevar, the Oceans Campaign Director of Greenpeace and strong environmental protection activist argues, “Oil and gas companies need to follow through on their commitments… it is a more environmentally sound policy to require oil and gas companies to take responsibility for full removal.”[11]. Hocevar’s ideal valuation of accountability in his critique of the oil industry is very similar to sentiments echoed in Andrew Szasz’s, Troubled Waters. Szasz highlights resident’s distrust of the government’s ability to maintain accountability of the fossil fuel industry, “They’ve lied to us before, and we know they’ll lie to us again…. They’ll tell us anything just to get a foot in the door, but when push comes to shove, they’ll let the oil companies do just about anything they want”[12]. There is more at stake now, according to the 2015 publication “Oil and gas platforms off the coast of California have the highest secondary fish production per unit area of seafloor of any marine habitat that has been studied”[13], meaning there is far more at stake now. This puts residents in a difficult position, do they value the material presence of a marine sanctuary in these artificial reefs over the preservation of the ideal values of accountability and preservation of nature?
Some of these platforms have already come to the end of their lives, and many more are soon to follow. Today, about four years since the last major oil spill in California coastal residents are faced with yet another set of moral and ethical imperatives. While maintaining some portion of the platforms would jeopardize the values of the local residents, it could be the first step in retelling the story of oil platforms on the coast of California from one of destruction to one of new life. Oil producers across the coast of California stand to benefit if further research positively paints the partial preservation of oil platforms, and public policies allow for the implementation of Rigs to Reef[14]. The success of Rigs to Reef could transform decades of negative perceptions surrounding offshore drilling, while affirming a narrative the oil industry has been populating for decades. In the early 1980s senior environmental representative from Shell Development Company affirmed that, “these structures simply provide one of the finest forms of artificial reef. They offer both food and protection… more productive than natural reefs … The highest profile artificial reefs are oil platforms”[15].
The persistent narrative around these platforms is that they are detrimental to the environment, and that the oil companies that produce them are inherently bad for the ecosystem could be shattered. Enabling a retelling of the story of offshore drilling, would be politically beneficial to the survival of big oil companies in a progressive state that values environmental protection . However, the potential to reframe the relationship between the oil industry and the marine ecosystem would raise additional questions about whether Californian’s value a “natural”, apolitical[16] nature absent of human intervention, more than they value “Nature”, and all of the organisms that thrive in these artificial reefs?
In addition to the political and psychological interests in the success of Rigs to Reef, is the economic interest oil companies have in the partial removal process as they look to save more than a billion dollars in complete removal costs. According to a 2006 estimate by the New York Times, “The potential savings to the oil industry from converting all of the rigs off California to reefs, rather than removing them, could be more than $1 billion… But under the law, oil companies would be required to put at least half of the money they save into state coffers to fund conservation programs”[17]. This combination of economic and social impacts that could result from the implementation of Rig to Reef programs is what makes the partial removal process of such a great interest to the fossil fuel industry[18].
The presence of new research, lauding the potential benefits of a Rig to Reef proposal, resurfaces decades old tensions resulting from the presence of oil platforms on the coast of California. Since the 1960s, what Californians value most has continued to change to better represent a union between citizens’ material and ideal worlds, especially now in an era of concerns over climate change, where the practical implantation of various values may be in conflict with one another. The prioritization of these values may have changed for Californians throughout the decades, but the “story” of what it means to be a Californian has not. The fundamental politically progressive values of accountability and preservation remain constant; as does, the deep interconnectedness between Californian culture, stories, and identity to the coast.
The threats posed by the fossil fuel industry and the potential of a Rigs to Reef program bring into question the prioritization of these values while reigniting the distrust of the fossil fuel industry. Previously the relationship between Californians and the fossil fuel industry that has jeopardized the material world and the ideal world Californians thrive in.
However it is simple to pin Californian’s ideals against those of the fossil fuel industry, all Californians are deeply entrenched in a material reality that relies heavily on the products of this industry to live their daily lives. The struggle between the two sides manifests in a clear material division and in the absence of a clear ideal division.
[1] Kaplan, Elizabeth. Politics of Offshore Oil: California: Threatening the Golden Shore. New York, N.Y: Praeger, 1982.
[2] Ibid., 3
[3] Ibid., 5
[4] “Largest Oil Spills Affecting U.S. Waters Since 1969 | Response.Restoration.Noaa.Gov.” Accessed May 2, 2019. https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/oil-spills/largest-oil-spills-affecting-us-waters-1969.html.
[5] Wheeling, Kate. “California Is Dismantling an Iconic Offshore Oil Rig.” Pacific Standard. Accessed April 10, 2019. https://psmag.com/environment/california-is-dismantling-an-iconic-offshore-oil-rig.
[6] Claisse, Jeremy T. “Oil Platforms off California Are among the Most Productive Marine Fish Habitats Globally.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 43 (October 28, 2014): 15462–67. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1411477111.
[8] “Rigs-to-Reefs.” Blue Latitudes. Accessed May 1, 2019. http://www.rig2reefexploration.org
[9] Kaplan, Elizabeth. Politics of Offshore Oil: California: Threatening the Golden Shore. New York, N.Y: Praeger, 1982.
[10] Hamilton, John. “How California’s Worst Oil Spill Turned Beaches Black And The Nation Green | WFUV.” http://www.wfuv.org/. Accessed April 10, 2019. http://www.wfuv.org/content/how- californias-worst-oil-spill-turned-beaches-black-and-nation-green.
[11] Hocevar,John. “Viewpoints: Rigs to Reefs — Mission Blue.” Mission Blue. Accessed April 10, 2019. https://mission-blue.org/2017/07/viewpoints-rigs-to-reefs/.
[12] Szasz, Andrew, 1947-. Ecopopulism : Toxic Waste and the Movement for Environmental Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.
[13] Claisse, Jeremy T. “Oil Platforms off California Are among the Most Productive Marine Fish Habitats Globally.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 43 (October 28, 2014): 15462–67. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1411477111.
[14] MacDonald, Nancy. “Fish and Oil Do Mix.” Maclean’s; Toronto, May 22, 2006.
[15] Kaplan, Elizabeth. Politics of Offshore Oil: California: Threatening the Golden Shore. New York, N.Y: Praeger, 1982.
[16] Angelo, Hillary, and Colin Jerolmack. “Nature’s Looking-Glass.” Contexts 11, no. 1 (February 1, 2012): 24–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504212436492.
[17] Olsen, Erik. “Marine Life Thrives in Unlikely Place: Offshore Oil Rigs — The New York Times.” Accessed April 10, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/science/marine-life-thrives-in-unlikely-place-offshore-oil-rigs.html.
[18] Angelo, Hillary, and Colin Jerolmack. “Nature’s Looking-Glass.” Contexts 11, no. 1 (February 1, 2012): 24–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504212436492.
