Federal Report Blasts Offshore Oil Studies

A federal report made public Friday charged that the Reagan Administration has grossly played down the environmental dangers posed by offshore oil drilling in Northern California, but Administration officials immediately repudiated the study after it was released.

In a sharp break with previous Administration environmental studies, the report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared that the government’s review of the impact of oil drilling off Mendocino and Humboldt counties has been incomplete and overly optimistic.

The Interior Department’s past assessments “inaccurately painted a picture of a routine operation with few potential impacts, when in fact offshore development in Northern California and the proposed tanker traffic is a high-risk operation in rough seas, in a geologically unstable area, with potentially devastating impacts on coastal resources,” the report found.

Another Assessment

But Fish and Wildlife Service officials, declaring that the report was misguided and unauthorized, released a substitute assessment that was largely stripped of many of the original’s more damning conclusions.

The earlier study by the service, a branch of the Interior Department, was concluded in April and released under a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The revised assessment was done last week.

Nevertheless, California congressmen were quick to seize on the original report as a “killer” revelation that they will use to try to delay any offshore development.

At a press conference releasing the federal report, Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey) called it “a devastating indictment” of the Administration’s position of “blind advocacy” on the volatile drilling issue.

‘Distortion’ Charged

While Fish and Wildlife officials argued that their two reports were similar in substance if not tone, Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica), a member of the Interior Committee, accused the Administration of practicing “distortion and misrepresentation” by replacing its original assessment with a “sanitized” version.

“This shatters the (Interior) Department’s credibility,” Levine said.

The Interior Department expects to complete in August a final environmental impact statement that could pave the way by early next year for drilling agreements for 1.1 million square acres of water off the scenic Northern California coast, a proposal known as Lease Sale 91. The department is withholding judgment until then, but Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel has said that offshore drilling should be a centerpiece of the nation’s future energy policy.

Moratorium Extension

But wary congressional critics, seeking more time for study, are hoping to extend still further a limited moratorium on offshore development that is now in place through February, 1989.

The grim April assessment that sparked the current controversy was signed by Fish and Wildlife Director Frank Dunkle. But Dunkle was not fully aware of the report’s conclusions because “unfortunately it didn’t get the customary review . . . and got into some areas we didn’t need to be getting into,” agency spokesman Craig Rieben said.

Rolf L. Wallenstrom, director of the agency’s western region--where the April report originated--said the report was rushed to Washington by low-level biologists without his ever seeing it, and it included “staff opinion which never should have gotten in there.”

Risk of Oil Spills

Specifically, the April Fish and Wildlife report indicates that the Interior Department’s earlier reviews had underestimated the offshore drilling risk of oil spills and the potential damage to the region’s fish and wildlife and its water supply.

In addition, it says, “In contrast to the rich floral and faunal coastal resources of Humboldt and Mendocino counties, the oil and gas resources thought to underlie the lease sale area are relatively meager.”

The report “confirms our worst suspicions about offshore drilling,” Panetta said. The assessment should carry great weight in future debate, he added, because it came from analysts within the Administration itself, “not just a bunch of wide-eyed environmentalists and California congressmen.”

An angry Rachel Bina, a founding member of the Ocean Sanctuary Coordinating Committee, which has fought Lease Sale 91, said in an interview: “It’s essential that this report has come to light. It shows how this Administration is willing to manipulate the facts to suit its position, and they don’t give a damn about the truth.”