Offshore drilling’s threat to Bay Area
Oil spills under Trump’s coastal plan endanger national parks, report says
Six national park sites in the Bay Area would be in danger of being slimed by oil — one of the most hard-hit areas in the country — if President Trump goes through with his plan to expand offshore oil drilling along the California coast, a national report on federal parks said Wednesday.
Oil spills would threaten beaches, marinas, historic and recreational sites in 10 federal park lands in California, including protected areas in San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma and Contra Costa counties, said the report by the National Parks Conservation Association and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
In total, 68 national park sites would be threatened from Point Reyes to Cape Hatteras, in North Carolina, and from Fort Point, next to the Golden Gate Bridge, to the Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbor, the report said.
“These places matter, and we cannot completely protect them if we start to drill off our coasts,” said Mark Wenzler, senior vice president of conservation programs for the
National Parks Conservation Association. “Not only is the administration trying to open up these areas, but they are also pursuing a parallel agenda to deregulate the oil and gas industries . ... We think that’s a recipe for disaster.”
Besides ruining fisheries and endangering birds, sea turtles, whales, sea lions and other marine mammals, oil spills could savage the local economies on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and areas off the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, the report said. These parks employ 59,517 people and contribute $5.7 billion in goods and services. The 84 million annual visitors contribute $90.3 billion to the gross domestic product of the country, the report said.
At risk in the Bay Area would be the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Point Reyes National Seashore, Fort Point National Historic Site, Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park.
Franz Matzner, director of federal affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the idea of the report was not just to say that oil spills are more likely when there are more oil rigs, but also to alert federal officials and citizens of the economic danger from oil drifting around cherished parks and monuments.
“It may be stating the obvious to some,” Matzner said, “but it may not be obvious to the Trump administration, which is barreling ahead with a plan that is unprecedented.”
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced plans on Jan. 4 to offer 47 new offshore leases in federal waters off Alaska, the West Coast, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast.
The proposed leases, including six areas along the California coast, were a response to an executive order by Trump to reconsider drilling bans signed by former President Barack Obama. Zinke’s draft five-year plan, which is expected to be completed this summer, would, he said, “strike the right balance to protect our coasts and people while still powering America and achieving American Energy Dominance.”
Lynn Cullivan, spokesman for the Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco, said swimmers and historic ships would be in serious danger if there was a large spill.
“If it made its way into the bay, it would probably make its way into Aquatic Park,” where, he said, “there are five national historic landmark ships, and on the east side, a number of historic small craft.”
In Southern California, the Channel Islands National Park, Cabrillo National Monument and Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area would be hit particularly hard, according to the report. Oil drilling could also have a major impact at Redwood National and State Park, in Del Norte and Humboldt counties, in the far northern part of the state.
The 10 California parks together employ 9,761 people and contributed $994 million in goods and services in 2017. Some 26 million visitors spent $816.6 million.
“We can’t really speculate on how at-risk each place would be, but San Francisco Bay, as well as the Channel Islands in Santa Barbara, are potentially in the path of oil,” said Nicholas Lund, a senior manager for landscape conservation at the National Parks Conservation Association.
The report uses the 1969 blowout of an oil platform in the Santa Barbara Channel as an example of the horrific damage that can occur. That spill leaked 4.2 million gallons of crude oil and killed thousands of seabirds and marine mammals in the Channel Islands National Park.
In 2015, a burst pipeline at Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County spewed 142,800 gallons of crude oil into the ocean and coated 7 miles of beaches, killing dolphins, birds and sea lions.
The Bay Area, like Santa Barbara, is home to a vast network of oil pipelines that could easily rupture and cause the same kind of disastrous spill, officials said.
Although there have been oil tanker spills in the Bay Area, the last major pipeline disaster was in 2004, when an underground 14-inchdiameter pipe owned by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners ruptured, spewing 123,774 gallons of diesel fuel into Suisun Marsh, near Fairfield, sliming birds, fish and mammals and spoiling some 224 acres of wetlands.
California officials have vowed to fight the Trump administration’s effort to expand oil drilling. The state controls waters 3 miles out from the coast, and legislators say they will block the federal government from transporting oil using existing or new pipelines in state-controlled waters.
There are 23 offshore oil and gas facilities in federal waters off California’s coast, and four platforms in state waters, according to the State Lands Commission.