Migratory Birds at Risk in Gulf

The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe will impact not only sea and wading birds native to the Gulf coast, but also migratory songbirds passing through Gulf coastal areas on their way north during late April and early May. The smoke created by efforts to burn off some of the oil will make their long journey even more difficult as they arrive near the US weak and undernourished.  Environmental News Service reports that the following bird sanctuaries are at immediate risk of damage from the spilled oil:

• Gulf Coast Least Tern colony--one of the world's largest colony of the threatened least tern nest on a man-made white sand beach in Biloxi;
• Pascagoula River Coastal Preserve--the marshes at the mouth of the river provide habitat for yellow and black rails, snowy plovers;
• Gulf Islands National Seashore--thousands of wintering shorebirds live here including the brown pelican, Louisiana's state bird, and the endangered piping plover;
• Breton National Wildlife Refuge--includes the Chandeleur Islands, home of the largest tern colony in North America, also oystercatchers, piping plover and frigatebirds inhabit the refuge;
• Dauphin Island--stopover for gulls, terns, herons and rails;
• Fort Morgan Historical Park--another important resting place for migrant birds;
• Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge--thousands of Gulf migrants rest and feed here;
• Baptiste Collete Bird Islands-- artificial barrier islands that are home to terns, brown pelicans, and skimmers;
• Elgin Air Force Base--the base has significant coastal habitat used by shore and wading birds as well as an inland population of red-cockaded woodpeckers;
• Delta National Wildlife Refuge{4.15.10}--thousands of wading birds such as snowy egrets, herons, and white ibis live here, and migrating shorebirds use the mudflats during migration.

Even though Forty-four has announced a halt to new drilling pending an investigation, Shell Oil has already announced plans to drill in the Arctic an area equally as fragile as the Gulf Coast. There is even less demonstrated facility to clean up a major oil spill in the Arctic according to a former director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, now an executive with Defenders of Wildlife. Mr. Jamie Clark called for a reinstatement of the drilling moratorium on the OCS and legislation from Congress mandating a shift to greener energy sources.  California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced an about face on his decision to allow a limited expansion of oil drilling off Santa Barbara, citing the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

British Petroleum, the energy company that advertised itself as "Beyond Petroleum" has offered no explanation so far of why such a deep water well was not equipped with an acoustically controllable blow out preventer (BOP) and redundant systems. A 1999 Minerals Management Service report says that many blow out preventers used by oil companies do not work properly. According to the report, during a two year period in the late nineties, there were 117 failures of blow out preventers offshore. Between 1992 and 2006 there were 39 actual well blowouts. Blowout preventers can weigh up to 500,000 lbs, and be up to 50 feet in length. According to one newspaper account, the crew that escaped the platform said the blowout preventer (BOP) was activated before abandoning the rig. Investigators may find that the crew lost control of the oil and gas pressures in the well bore leading to an onboard explosion and fire. The rig itself contained over 700,000 gallons of fuel oil to run operations. The intense heat of the ensuing fire caused the drilling platform to collapse. Without support, the well riser fell to the sea bottom were it ruptured in several places, spewing oil into the Gulf. Transocean, the owner of the drilling rig leased by BP manages 142 offshore rigs. It experienced problems with BOPs in 2009. Steven Newman of Transocean addressed the problem during an earnings conference as "...a handful of BOP problems; nothing that I would characterize as systemic or quarter specific. We did a deep dive on each one of those incidents. We've identified the root causes. We are going back to address them in our management systems so they don't happen again....All of the BOP incidents that occurred in Q2 have been resolved, and we'll continue to keep our eye closely on the performance of our subsea equipment."

Twenty dead sea turtles including endangered Kemp's ridley have already washed up ashore in Mississippi.  Ingestion of oil coated fish is suspected to be the cause of death.

[photo: brown pelicans, Breton NWS, USF&WS]