Rigs to Riches?

Seven oil platforms off Orange County’s coast nearing retirement could become permanent havens for aquatic life if their owners win a legislative battle to turn them into artificial reefs. But environmentalists say oil companies just want to avoid costly cleanup.

Under water, invertebrates such as mussels and barnacles attach themselves to the steel towers that support the platforms. Creatures such as strawberry anemones, ochre starfish, rockfish and sea cucumbers gather around these skeletal structures.

Under state and federal law, these supports are to be removed with the rest of the platforms when oil companies decommission the rigs, cap their wells and restore the sea floor to its original condition. But “rig-to-reef” proponents say these thriving underwater communities shouldn’t be disturbed--even when the offshore rigs are no longer in use.

“For most of us, the notion that an oil rig’s anything but an oil rig is unheard of,” said state Sen. Dede Alpert (D-Coronado). “People forget about what lives under the water.”

Alpert has sponsored a bill that would allow oil companies to leave the underwater steel structure in place to act as an artificial reef, even after the platform is removed. Oil companies would save millions of dollars in decommissioning costs but would still have to pay a substantial sum--perhaps 75% of the savings--into a marine research endowment fund, Alpert said. The California Endowment for Marine Preservation bill probably will come before the Senate Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee early next year.

The state Legislature’s decision could determine the fate of seven platforms off Seal Beach and Huntington Beach. These rigs will be decommissioned in the coming decades, some as soon as 2005.

Statewide, 32 rigs will be decommissioned in the next decade. Factors such as shipping traffic and water depth and quality will determine which could be turned into reefs.

“This is a situation where we feel true environmentalists’ interests and industry’s interests could very well be aligned,” said George Steinbach, Chevron Corp.’s decommissioning manager for California offshore areas.

*

Chevron and other oil companies funded the start-up of the nonprofit California Artificial Reef Enhancement program, which is lobbying for conversion of rigs to reefs.

“People don’t realize what’s out there,” said Kristin Valette, a program board member. “We’ve already got this ecosystem. It would do more harm to rip [the rigs] out. It would kill a lot of the marine environment.”

The debate over turning oil facilities into reefs off Orange County’s coast began not over a standard oil rig but over an artificial island where oil was drilled until 1994. Fishing and diving enthusiasts have appeared before the State Lands Commission to protest plans to remove the artificial Belmont Island off Seal Beach, a spot they say is alive with marine life.

But commission staff members say the ocean is not deep or clear enough at this location to make the facility a good candidate for conversion into a reef. Typically, structures converted into reefs are removed down to a point well below the water surface to allow ships and commercial fishing nets to pass over.

Instead, the commission and the state Department of Fish and Game are considering moving the rocks that surround the artificial island, along with attached aquatic life, to the Bolsa Chica Artificial Reef, a collection of concrete rubble off Huntington Beach. A decision could be made at the commission’s December meeting, said Paul Thayer, the commission’s executive officer.

*

Key to the long-term debate over turning rigs into reefs is determining the environmental benefit. Researchers and environmentalists are hoping that question will be answered by the time more rigs are decommissioned.

“There isn’t anything that’s happening overnight. Let’s do science first and policy second,” said Warner Chabot, the Pacific region director for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Marine Conservation.

The biggest scientific question remains whether artificial reefs actually increase sea life populations.

“Artificial reefs are very good at attracting fishes from natural reefs,” said Donna Schroeder, a research scientist at the Marine Science Institute at UC Santa Barbara. “But whether there is an increase in the number of fish is up for debate.”

Additionally, if the spots aren’t protected from fishing, these reefs could actually lead to decreases in the fish population, she said.

There is also a philosophical debate, Schroeder conceded. “I don’t want to start the precedent of anyone who wants to being able to dump their scrap metal on the ocean floor.”

The only thing that is certain is that more research is necessary, she added.

Environmentalists, mindful of the oil industry’s track record, remain skeptical of the whole proposal.

“A reef is a natural, alive animal system. An oil well is an oil well. It’s absolutely ludicrous to call an oil well a reef,” said Gordon Labedz, a member of the Sierra Club’s Coastal Protection Committee.

“When they dump the entire thing underwater because they don’t want to pay the cost of dismantling these atrocities, they’re creating an enormous amount of toxic pollution in the ocean. Those establishments are just completely covered with chemicals and petrol products.”

The Surfrider Foundation of San Clemente supports artificial reefs only as replacements for natural reefs destroyed by people.

“Our position is that artificial reefs should be looked at when you have an existing reef habitat that’s been impacted by human activity,” said Eve Kliszewski, Surfrider’s environmental director.

Susan Jordan, a board member of the League for Coastal Protection, disputes the proposal’s basic premise that a rig could ever be a reef.

“Some people try and say this is a habitat. It’s not--it’s an oil company leaving debris in the ocean. We have a tremendous amount of debris left over by them already,” she said. “The analogy that I use is a telephone pole versus a tree. Just because it sits there, it’s a structure and birds can sit on it doesn’t mean it’s a viable habitat.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Retiring Rigs

After decades of pumping oil from the sea floor, the seven offshore oil platforms off of Orange County’s coast will likely be retired in coming years. Platform Edith, owned by Nuevo Energy Corp., could be the first to be decommissioned around 2005. But the fate of these mammoth steel structures, and the tons of underwater aquatic life attached to them, could rest on a controversial proposal that would allow obscure oil rigs to be turned into artificial reefs.