Public comment BEFORE THE U.S. COMMISSION ON OCEAN POLICY in ANCHORAGE , ALASKA, AUGUST 22, 2002, PRESENTED

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Public comment BEFORE THE U.S. COMMISSION ON OCEAN POLICY in ANCHORAGE , ALASKA, AUGUST 22, 2002, PRESENTED

Fyon - Bob Shavelson

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TESTIMONY BEFORE THE U.S. COMMISSION ON OCEAN POLICY ANCHORAGE, ALASKA AUGUST 22, 2002 PRESENTED BY BOB SHAVELSON COOK INLET KEEPER HOMER, ALASKA Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Bob Shavelson and I represent Cook Inlet Keeper, a nonprofit organization representing hundreds of Alaskans deeply concerned about water quality and the health of our marine systems. Cook Inlet Keeper is also a member of the National Waterkeeper Alliance, a coalition of waterway patrol groups led by Bobby Kennedy, Jr. in the fastest growing national environmental movement in the Nation. The Bush/Cheney Energy Plan provides a supply-side prescription for staving off the Nation’s growing energy needs. And while the Administration’s plan relies heavily on new public lands drilling, it focuses disproportionately on Alaska’s famously productive offshore waters. The federal Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) latest 5 Year Plan for Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil & Gas Leasing includes multi-million acre lease sales in Cook Inlet, in the Hope basin, and in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Yet as we press forward with expanded OCS development, we remain mired in an outdated regulatory paradigm which ignores modern science and frustrates a sustainable oceans policy. Specifically, on the OCS, between 3 and 200 miles, it remains legal under the Clean Water Act to dump toxic drilling and production wastes into our ...

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Publié par	Fyon
Nombre de lectures	23
Langue	English

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TESTIMONY BEFORE THE

U.S. COMMISSION ON OCEAN POLICY

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

AUGUST 22, 2002

PRESENTED BY

BOB SHAVELSON

COOK INLET KEEPER

HOMER, ALASKA

Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

My name is Bob Shavelson and I represent Cook Inlet Keeper, a nonprofit organization

representing hundreds of Alaskans deeply concerned about water quality and the health

of our marine systems. Cook Inlet Keeper is also a member of the National

Waterkeeper Alliance, a coalition of waterway patrol groups led by Bobby Kennedy, Jr.

in the fastest growing national environmental movement in the Nation.

The Bush/Cheney Energy Plan provides a supply-side prescription for staving off

the Nation’s growing energy needs. And while the Administration’s plan relies heavily

on new public lands drilling, it focuses disproportionately on Alaska’s famously

productive offshore waters. The federal Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) latest 5

Year Plan for Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil & Gas Leasing includes multi-million

acre lease sales in Cook Inlet, in the Hope basin, and in the Beaufort and Chukchi

Seas.

Yet as we press forward with expanded OCS development, we remain mired in

an outdated regulatory paradigm which ignores modern science and frustrates a

sustainable oceans policy. Specifically, on the OCS, between 3 and 200 miles, it

remains legal under the Clean Water Act to dump toxic drilling and production wastes

into our fisheries and marine habitats. Although EPA has banned the discharge of

drilling muds, cuttings, produced waters and chemical additives in all coastal waters in

the United States except for Cook Inlet, OCS discharge rules remain firmly fixed in the

archaic notion that “dilution is the solution to pollution.” But now a growing body of

COOK INLET KEEPER TESTIMONY

AUGUST 22, 2002

U.S. OCEANS POLICY COMMISSION

PAGE 1

scientific evidence is telling us what common sense already knew: that our fragile

marine ecosystems are susceptible to toxic pollution. While there are many studies and

reports attributing adverse marine effects to oil and gas industry discharges, a few

examples paint an adequate picture.

Shortly after the

Exxon Valdez

Oil Spill, scientists from the National Marine

Fisheries Service discovered that a common constitute of oily wastes – Polycyclic

Aromatic Hydrocarbons or PAHs – increase juvenile pink salmon mortality dramatically

more than previously known. This research teaches us several things. First, that low

levels of hydrocarbon contamination – as low as 1 ppb – are toxic to commercially and

socially important anadromous fish, and that current regulatory safeguards are several

orders of magnitude above the level needed to assure healthy salmon populations.

Another lesson is that our current regulatory focus on short term, acute toxicity ignores

the complex, chronic, long term effects which threaten fish population fitness. While the

sight of dead bloated fish floating in the mousse of a fresh spill can evoke a compelling

response, decreased fish fitness and increased susceptibility to prey at early life stages

plays no less a role in fish survivorship.

In separate research, Norway’s Institute of Marine Research recently found that a

common component of produced water discharges – alkylphenols – causes estrogenic

or hormone mimic effects in one of our most commercially valuable fish - cod.

Specifically, laboratory data showed alkylphenols cause female cod to spawn up to six

weeks later than normal, and produced female traits in male cod. Although this was the

first study to link oil industry wastes to such effects in a marine environment, the

toxicology of alkylphenols in fresh water aquatic systems is well documented.

Just outside our door here, in Cook Inlet, the EPA has found an alarming array of

toxic chemicals in subsistence marine resources, including snails, chiton, salmon, and

sea bass. And while the cause and effect links are difficult to prove in a large dynamic

estuary such as Cook Inlet – particularly when the burden of proof rests on the

shoulders of ordinary citizens – we know one thing: the contaminants found in the fish

are the same types as those discharged in nearly 3 billion gallons of oil and gas industry

wastes each year. Cook Inlet Native communities are rightly concerned about the

future of their subsistence lifestyles, which date back centuries. And we can pour

COOK INLET KEEPER TESTIMONY

AUGUST 22, 2002

U.S. OCEANS POLICY COMMISSION

PAGE 2

enormous energy and resources into trying to disprove the threats to our marine

resources, or we can fall back on a wealth of science amassed since Rachel Carson’s

revelations in the 1960’s: that toxic chemicals have toxic effects on living resources.

Finally, a recent investigative news series in the

Mobile Register

showed how

MMS’s own studies found excessively high mercury levels in fish taken near oil and gas

platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Significantly, MMS found mercury at levels known to

pose harm to human consumers, and these findings relate to the very same types of

discharges currently allowed throughout the OCS. And perhaps equally important, the

MMS’s reluctance to release and publicize the studies conjures images of Arthur

Anderson as both auditor and consultant, where MMS not only conducts the studies

necessary to rationalize OCS development, but also plays a leading role promoting

offshore development. The mere appearance of conflict undermines public confidence,

and should place offshore research under the auspices of an agency which is not

charged with promoting OCS development.

Since the beginning of recorded time until 1800, our planet accumulated a

human population of 1 billion souls. One hundred and fifty years later, that number

more than doubled, to over 2.5 billion. In the last fifty years, the planet’s human

population more than doubled again, to over 6.5 billion. And with growing populations

comes increasing energy demand and pollution, resulting in an undisputed fact:

anticipated population increases will increasingly tax our fragile and finite marine

resources.

Offshore oil and gas operations dump countless billions of gallons of toxic wastes

into U.S. waters each year. And as the National Academy of Sciences recently found in

Oil in the Seas II

, the greatest threat to marine ecosystem health comes not from short

term catastrophic events , but rather from long term, chronic pollution. Alternative

energies pose the greatest hope for stemming the rising tide of toxic marine pollution

and securing domestic energy security. However, if the United States must pursue an

energy policy emphasizing offshore development, we should do it right. We should do it

within the technologic and economic means of the richest and most sophisticated

corporations on the planet. We should do it with sound science which shows toxic

pollution harms fish and people. And we should do it in a sensible and pragmatic

COOK INLET KEEPER TESTIMONY

AUGUST 22, 2002

U.S. OCEANS POLICY COMMISSION

PAGE 3

COOK INLET KEEPER TESTIMONY

AUGUST 22, 2002

U.S. OCEANS POLICY COMMISSION

PAGE 4

fashion which recognizes the real economic, social and ecological values of our oceans

for present and future generations.

Discontinuing the outdated practice of open oil and gas waste dumping on the

OCS is a good first step, and an important element for building public confidence in

national energy policies. On behalf of the hundreds of Alaskans I represent throughout

the Cook Inlet watershed and beyond, I urge this panel to formalize this common sense

recommendation in its final report.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and thank you for your service to

our oceans.

Bob Shavelson, Cook Inlet Keeper

P.O. Box 3269, Homer, AK 99603

ph: (907) 235-4068; fx: (907) 235-4069

bob@inletkeeper.org;www.inletkeeper.org

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