I couldn't find a diary about this, deadline to comment is coming up in two days (midnight EDT Thursday July 6th) so here goes, and read on because there’s a new bombshell wrinkle.
As part of the Trump administration’s new push to drill everywhere including offshore, in areas currently immune from those horrors, they still have to go through the motions of soliciting public comment. Tossing out the current lease plan, which runs through 2022, and starting over to open up more areas (including much of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, more Gulf, more Alaskan waters etc.) is a second current step, with the comment period just starting — I’m hoping to do a second diary about that if someone doesn’t beat me to it.)
However, getting ready to close is the window to comment on permits for proposed seismic (very loud airgun) surveys in the Atlantic, which were requested before, in 2015, and resulted in the permits not being approved since these areas were not being opened for drilling leases. (However, it may have led to this new one being refined regarding proposed protections for whales etc.) Trump issued an executive order in April to expedite these airgun survey permits,)
The current proposal would allow approx. seven different companies and surveys from Delaware to Cape Canaveral FL, and as the Federal Register notice of June 6 describes it:
Generally speaking, these surveys may occur within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (i.e., to 200 nautical miles (nmi)) from Delaware to approximately Cape Canaveral, Florida and corresponding with BOEM's Mid- and South Atlantic OCS planning areas, as well as additional waters out to 350 nmi from shore.
Hopefully you already know that towing these deafening air gun arrays back and forth and back and forth to seismically survey the seabed for oil and gas deposits deafens and disorientates marine mammals, and the FR notice is full of all kinds of precautions about how these impacts are supposed to be avoided. (Me personally I don’t trust these approximately seven commercial companies to be all that careful since they are after all working for the oil companies.)
However, since this FR notice was published on June 6, there was a study from Australia (published online June 22) showing that these towed airguns also kill off zooplankton, which include both the tiny ocean organisms that feed everything higher up the food chain and larger in size (fish and marine mammals and some ocean flora), but also the tiny offspring of fish. (More details and link re that study in a minute, but this is a game changer.)
You can write regs (effective or not) about avoiding specific known migratory lanes for certain whales, or when you spot them surfacing or on sonar, but zooplankton is everywhere and is too tiny to swim away from danger fast enough. More to the point, killing off a significant amount of the food source for our fish, crustaceans etc. means they won’t have enough to eat, and fish can’t really migrate successfully since waters beyond the gulf stream are too cold and the surveys cover too much of the Atlantic coast, whales need these food sources while migrating.
Bottom line: both whales and our local sustainable seafood are at risk.
OK to that study, link: Widely used marine seismic survey air gun operations negatively impact zooplankton | Nature Ecology & Evolution
Their towed airguns “caused a two- to three-fold increase in dead adult and larval zooplankton.”
Impacts were observed out to the maximum 1.2 km range sampled, which was more than two orders of magnitude greater than the previously assumed impact range of 10 m. Although no adult krill were present, all larval krill were killed after air gun passage. There is a significant and unacknowledged potential for ocean ecosystem function and productivity to be negatively impacted by present seismic technology.
Phytoplankton and their grazers—zooplankton—underpin ocean productivity1,2, therefore significant impacts on plankton by anthropogenic sources have enormous implications for ocean ecosystem structure and health. In addition, a significant component of zooplankton communities comprises the larval stages of many commercial fisheries species. Healthy populations of fish, top predators and marine mammals are not possible without viable planktonic productivity1,2,3. [emphasis added]
According to an article in Southeast Energy News, the NOAA FR notice
makes clear it won’t consider blanket, anti-drilling statements as part of its deliberations. But NOA spokesperson Jennie Lyons says the agency encourages comment on seismic surveys and their impact on marine mammals specifically, including last week’s study on zooplankton.
“We always consider new information received during public comment periods prior to issuing final authorizations.” said Lyons.
OK, details,Here’s the correct citation for that study: McCauley, R. D. et al. Widely used marine seismic survey air gun operations negatively impact zooplankton. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 1, 0195 (2017).
And here’s how to comment (by midnight EDT Thursday July 6th. Email to ITP.Laws@noaa.gov (although the FR notice doesn’t say so, I’d recommend including this reference in the subject line: “RIN 0648-XE28”
Email comments and any attachments should not exceed 25 MB total.
All comments received get posted online along with any personal information included. “Do not submit confidential business information or otherwise sensitive or protected information.”
Scientists are already concerned about the endangered North Atlantic right whale which is disappearing, and other species appear to be harmed (before this new zooplankton study in the field, or rather ocean). Other species shown to be harmed for example:
