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Tag: Gulf of Mexico

FWC: Red tide increasing

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Outdoors, Red tide.

Red tide is increasing again in the Gulf of Mexico off Anna Maria Island, according to today’s report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

The Sept. 7 report shows that red tide levels are from 5 percent to 25 percent higher than last week.

Low concentrations of red tide were found in water samples taken at the Rod & Reel Pier in Anna Maria. Medium concentrations were found in water at Longboat Pass and at Cortez Beach, both in Bradenton Beach, and background concentrations were found at the Palma Sola Bay bridge.

Background concentrations of red tide cause no anticipated effects. Low levels can cause respiratory irritation, shellfish harvesting closures and possible fish kills. Medium levels can cause respiratory irritation, shellfish harvesting closures and probable fish kills. High levels can cause all of the above, plus water discoloration.

Respiratory irritation was reported from Aug. 30 to Sept. 5 at Coquina Beach (Bradenton Beach) and from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 and again on Sept. 4 at Manatee Beach (Holmes Beach).

The last reported fish kill in Manatee County was on Aug. 31 in Bradenton Beach.

Persistent surface currents before, during and after the passage of Tropical Storm Gordon likely played a role in transporting Karenia brevis red tide cells to the northwest, according to FWC.

Red tide is a type of algae that emits a neurotoxin when it blooms. Deadly to fish, sea turtles, marine mammals and shorebirds that feed on affected fish, red tide makes shellfish unfit to eat, and can cause respiratory irritation in people, especially those with asthma, COPD or other respiratory diseases.

Call 866-300-9399 in Florida to hear a recording about red tide conditions. Callers outside of Florida, call 727-552-2448.

Oil and rigs

Oil and gas lease sale set for August

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in First Place, Special Sections.

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will offer 78 million acres of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas for oil and gas exploration and development on Wednesday, Aug. 15, according to an agency press release.

The announcement underscores accusations from critics that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s promise earlier this year to Florida Gov. Rick Scott that Florida would be “off the table” for offshore drilling was an “election-year stunt.”

First Place

Environmental Writing

2018

At a subsequent Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, Zinke admitted that “Florida is still in the process,” when asked about the agency’s offshore drilling program, according to Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who is defending his Senate seat in a race against Republican Scott.

A proposed amendment to the Florida constitution would prohibit “drilling for exploration or extraction of oil or natural gas” if approved. The proposal is on the ballot for the Nov. 6 general election; it will need at least 60 percent of voters to pass.

“Responsibly developing our offshore energy resources is a major pillar of this administration’s energy strategy,” Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said in the press release announcing the lease sale. “A strong offshore energy program supports tens of thousands of well-paying jobs and provides the affordable and reliable energy Americans need to heat homes, fuel our cars and power our economy.”

“Powering America and protecting the offshore environment are not mutually exclusive,” Counselor to the Secretary for Energy Policy Vincent DeVito said in the press release. “We can do both. American energy production can be competitive while remaining safe and environmentally sound. This lease sale is just one piece of the Administration’s comprehensive effort to secure our Nation’s energy future.”

Lease Sale 251, scheduled to be live-streamed from New Orleans, will be the third offshore sale under the National Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2017-22. Under the program, 10 lease sales are scheduled for the Gulf, where resource potential and industry interest are high, and oil and gas infrastructure is well established. Two Gulf lease sales will be held each year.

The sale will include approximately 14,622 unleased blocks located from three to 231 miles offshore in the Gulf’s Western, Central and Eastern planning areas in water depths ranging from nine to more than 11,115 feet (three to 3,400 meters). The Gulf of Mexico OCS, covering about 160 million acres, contains about 48 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and 141 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered technically recoverable gas, according to the release.

Successful bidders will pay a 12.5 percent royalty rate for leases in less than 200 meters of water and a royalty rate of 18.75 percent for all other leases.

Terms and conditions for the lease sale are detailed in the Final Notice of Sale (FNOS) information package. The FNOS is available in the Federal Register.

Hands Across the Sand oil protest

Lawsuit seeks protection from drilling

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Environment, Outdoors.

Environmental group Earthjustice has sued the Trump administration in Tampa federal district court for failing to complete a report about offshore drilling’s harms to threatened and endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a press release.

The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are required under the Endangered Species Act to complete a study on oil drilling hazards to wildlife with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), according to Earthjustice.

The last time the agencies completed such a study, called a biological opinion, was in 2007, three years before the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion. The disaster left 11 workers dead and dumped millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf for three months, coating miles of wetlands with thick oil, killing birds, fish, and marine mammals and causing tar balls to wash up on Gulf beaches.

Recognizing that the disaster devastated the Gulf ecosystem and its wildlife and invalidated assumptions in the 2007 biological opinion, the Services and BOEM reinitiated the biological opinion process in late 2010. But more than seven years later, as the administration is poised to hold a lease sale next month for oil and gas in the Gulf, the agencies still have not completed a new opinion, according to Earthjustice.

The suit on behalf of the Gulf Restoration Network, Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity is challenging the agencies for unreasonably delaying completion of a new opinion and seeks a court order to compel them to complete it by September.

A new opinion could result in additional safeguards to prevent harm to sea turtles, whales and other threatened and endangered species from oil and gas operations in the Gulf, according to Earthjustice.

“The Gulf of Mexico has long been written off as America’s gas station, jeopardizing Gulf Coast communities, coastal economies, and thousands of whales, sea turtles, dolphins, oysters and other species that wind up in the path of oil and gas spills. We seek to hold the Trump administration accountable to the law in its duty to protect endangered species and compel the oil and gas industry to clean up its act in the Gulf,” Earthjustice attorney Chris Eaton said in a press release.

“For over 10 years, the federal agencies that are responsible for the protection of threatened and endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico have been sitting on their hands. As we saw in the BP disaster, the harm caused by the oil and gas industry wreaks havoc on our Gulf. It’s time for these agencies to do their job and comply with the law,” said Cynthia Sarthou, executive director of Gulf Restoration Network.

“The Gulf has been treated as a sacrifice zone for corporate polluters for far too long,” said Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program. “We will not allow the Trump administration to ignore serious threats to coastal ecosystems in their reckless quest to sell off America’s waters to the fossil fuel industry for offshore drilling.”

“The Trump administration can’t keep turning a blind eye to the damage offshore drilling does to the Gulf’s most imperiled species,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans program legal director at the Center. “Trump officials want to expand offshore drilling and fracking into nearly every corner of the Gulf before they understand what’s out there. Our government has a moral and legal obligation to carefully study the risks to rare whales, sea turtles, and other animals before allowing these dirty, dangerous practices. It’s time for the courts to remind the agencies of this important duty.”