Long a scourge to environmentalists, California’s offshore oil rigs may be transformed into ecological trophies.
A dozen or more of the state’s 27 offshore platforms could be decommissioned in the next decade. Rather than tearing them down, many would like to preserve the incidental artificial reefs – and the enriched marine habitat – that have formed on their underwater pilings.
And up top?
How about windmills? Dive hotels? Sea farms? Marine research centers? Or simply lop them off 85 feet below the ocean surface, leaving the base for fish and the recreational fishermen who hunt them?
“We’re limited only by our imaginations,” said Jerry Schubel, president of Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific. The aquarium is hosting a conference that started Sunday, Jan. 12 and continues through Tuesday, Jan. 14 to explore those possibilities along with the logistics, science and potential conflicts of what’s ahead.
Unresolved issues include who would maintain the repurposed structures and what would happen to the hundreds of millions of dollars oil companies would save by not needing to remove the rigs once they’ve finished their life cycles as oil derricks, said Betty Yee, the state controller and chairwoman of the California Lands Commission, which oversees decommissioning of offshore rigs.
“Most significantly, what is best for the ocean’s health?” she said. “The decision will be controversial. Many believe the oil companies should remove all of the platforms and not leave their trash on the bottom of the ocean floor. … There will be plenty of debates.”
‘Blue economy’
Successful reuse of the platforms could help the coastal economy, which has seen 6% annual growth since 2005 with tourism and recreation the top economic drivers, Yee said. That was markedly stronger than the overall state economy growth rate of 4% over that time, she said.
The boost to the state’s blue economy could be especially timely as sea level rise gnaws away at recreational options, Schubel said.
“Our beaches will be compressed and many will be gone altogether,” he said.
The four platforms in state waters – within 3 miles of the shore – and 23 beyond that in federal waters are located in a stretch of ocean reaching from Orange County to Santa Barbara County. Twelve of the platforms are not currently producing oil and there are no current plans to put any of them back online, said John B. Smith, a decommissioning consultant for TSB Offshore.
The platform known as Holly, in state waters offshore of Santa Barbara County, is expected to be the first of existing California wells to be officially decommissioned. The platforms known as Harvest, Hermosa and Hidalgo – in federal waters offshore of Santa Barbara County – are likely next in line, with deconstruction or reuse construction to begin as early as 2025, Smith said.
Phasing out oil
Since the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara – at the time the largest spill in the United States – it has become increasingly difficult to site new offshore rigs in the state. No leases for new wells in state waters have been signed since the spill and while the newest well in federal waters went online in 1989, such rigs have grown less attractive to oil companies.
The Trump administration has proposed opening virtually all of the country’s coasts to new oil leases in federal waters, but Gov. Jerry Brown subsequently signed a 2018 law banning new pipelines and other infrastructure to serve rigs in federal water. That’s further increased the deterrence to drilling as the push to reduce oil operations dovetails with the state’s goal of carbon-free energy by 2045.
“Oil companies aren’t interested in fighting that battle anymore,” Smith said of potential new leases in California. “That could change if oil in the Middle East goes to $100 a barrel, but (now) there’s no incentive to drill.”
Environmentalists cheered the 2018 law but many continue to look for other possible incentives to drill – and for ways to remove them. Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center, said oil companies’ massive savings from not having to completely remove rigs at the end of their life cycle could motivate further drilling.
While Krop applauded the transparency and science-driven process of decommissioning regulations, she also told the 120 or so conference attendees Monday that attention needed to be paid to oil rigs attracting non-native species that could overwhelm native species.
And while the stripped-down oil structures aren’t toxic, she noted that heavy metals from the drilling bores have been detected at some sites where rigs have been removed entirely.
Robert Grove, an oceanographer who teaches at Pasadena’s ArtCenter College of Design, was among those who downplayed that concern.
“I don’t see any toxic downside if they cap them correctly,” he said.
Commercial fishermen largely see the derricks as obstacles to avoid and are watching the decommissioning process closely, hoping for a plan that is least likely to limit their fishing grounds or snag their nets. Recreational fisherman and divers, meanwhile, appear fully supportive of maintaining the artificial reefs created by the rigs.
“We fish the rigs because that’s where the fish are,” said Tom Raftican, president of the Sportfishing Conservancy.
