ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF THE OIL SPILL

(identified during “Brain Dump” and Environmental Committee meeting)

Damage to or contamination of:

  • Fisheries
  • Beaches
  • Offshore sand and sediment
  • Backbay and wetlands areas and other habitats for plants and animals
  • Fish, birds and other wildlife
  • Quality of water, air and soil
  • Valuation of the ecosystem

Public perception problems:

  • Short-term worries/uncertainty about:
  • Perceived dangerous environmental conditions (worries about toxicity of oil, including weathered oil, and dispersants in the water, for example)
  • Perceived unpleasant beach/water conditions (not necessarily dangerous, but unpleasant, such as tar balls)
  • Contamination of fish/seafood
  • Long-term environmental worries/uncertainty about:
  • Long-term impacts of oil on beaches, marshes, fisheries and wildlife
  • Long-term impact of oil on the seafood industry
  • Long-term effects of dispersants
  • Contaminated boom and materials in landfills
  • Decrease in public trust of government officials, scientific sources of testing data and other information sources.
  • Decrease in public confidence in the ability of the oil industry to prevent future leaks/spills/blowouts

Neutral or positive impacts:

  • Awareness of the fragility and resiliency of the environment
  • An opportunity for environmental groups to network and cooperate

SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

Management, communication and coordination:

  • Create a comprehensive plan for managing all potential disasters, including oil spills and hurricanes.
  • Get local input from diverse sectors of society, including elected officials, businesses, members of the scientific and education communities, the seafood industry, environmental organizations, and other stakeholders.
  • Gather and make centrally available existing research from local, state and federal governments, educational institutions, nongovernmental organizations, private industry and other sources. Create an entity like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that gathers and synthesizes data from all available sources.
  • Coordinate with private preparedness plans (for example, a private company that is seeking a government contract for a containment plan that would involve continual research and testing of strategies and equipment).
  • The final plan should:
  • Specify who’s in charge of recovery efforts from the beginning.
  • Specify what should be done in the first 24 hours, the first 48 hours, the first week, etc.
  • Designate staging areas for responders and shelters for victims.
  • Provide for the prepositioning of equipment and other assets so they can be brought into action promptly.
  • Identify/develop credible ways of getting information to the public in the case of any sort of disaster.
  • Designate a main spokesperson who can provide independent, credible, comprehensive information.
  • Identify other spokespeople whom the public already considers credible (e.g., Dr. George Crozier). Use them to counteract misleading or alarmist information provided by other scientists engaged in an “arms race” to get attention and thus funding for their research, etc.
  • Identify skill sets for responders.
  • Provide training for responders and elected public officials in disaster response and communication.
  • Provide written and online information that can be easily understood and used by the public, and publicize their availability and location.
  • Create a metric, like the familiar hurricane scale of Category 1, Category 2, etc., to quantify other kinds of coastal disaster impacts in a way that can be easily understood by the public.
  • Create a comprehensive plan to identify and manage long-term environmental threats, such as the effects of rising sea levels and other potential changes in climate and weather patterns.
  • Create a continuing, long-term program to educate the public.
  • Create a continuing Seafood Safety Information Program.
  • Develop a permanently funded statewide marketing plan promoting the beaches, water and seafood.
  • Work to generate positive public relations from outside sources.
  • Help the public understand the scientific process and the scientific community.
  • Coordinate and work together as a region.
  • Create a council of all local governments.
  • Create a citizens advisory group to monitor safety for the oil and gas industry
  • Create a regional organization to protect and restore the entire Mobile Bay watershed, modeled after the Cheseapeake Bay Foundation.
  • Build on current agencies/organizations, such as the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program (NEP).
  • Define and develop a management process for prioritizing environmental programs and projects, managing them and moving them forward.
  • Would this mean the creation of a new agency? Would one of the other agencies/organizations suggested here (e.g., the council of governments) oversee the process?

Research:

  • Create a permanently funded Beach Research Institute or Coastal Resiliency Institute to research all aspects of the coastal environment, including management of oil spills and other disasters.
  • Examine ways of dealing with the next spill.
  • Should dispersants be used? What are their short-term and long-term effects?
  • Is there a safer dispersant?
  • Should bacteria be introduced?
  • Undertake a long-term study of seafood quality.
  • Identify and prioritize critical wildlife habitat.
  • Study near-shore sand, water and sediment quality.
  • Research the long-term impact of all the carbon that the BP well introduced into the Gulf.
  • Develop a comprehensive set of baseline data detailing the current state of the environment. In other words, measure and quantify the condition of environmental health to which we want to restore ourselves after a disaster.
  • Continuously monitor the state of the environment in order to keep the database current.
  • Do a community vulnerability assessment modeled on the community resiliency index created after Hurricane Katrina through Sea Grant program.
  • Make sure we understand and balance the consequences of every action. For example, the Katrina Cut in Dauphin Island improved bay water quality and fishing but hurt oyster beds and reduced storm protection for mainland areas.

Action projects (which we need to prioritize):

  • Restore impacted areas.
  • Restore fisheries.
  • Rebuild oyster beds.
  • Protect impacted/fragile areas for the long term.
  • Create long-term beach renourishment and shoreline enhancement plans.
  • Identify a permanent funding source.
  • Restore and reconstruct barrier islands.
  • Restore and protect the west end of Dauphin Island.
  • Make it clear to the public that these projects are for overall coastal protection and not just the protection of a few rich people’s homes.
  • Improve sediment and siltation management.
  • Implement a credible, independent testing program for air, water and land. (Note related topics under “Research.”)
  • Prioritize and fund projects already approved by the EPA, such as estuary restoration projects.
  • Prioritize and fund Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) projects.
  • Modify or eliminate the causeway to improve water flow in Mobile Bay.
  • Lobby for changes to state and national laws, regulations and policies in order to:
  • End the deepwater drilling moratorium.
  • Make state/local laws/regulations friendlier to green energy. (Installing the power-generating windmill at LuLu’s involved massive red tape.)
  • Require the oil and gas industry to use whatever technology and safeguards are necessary to contain any spills to the immediate vicinity of the affected well.
  • Increase bonding requirements for drilling companies.
  • Allow federal authorities to immediately take responsibility in the event of a spill instead of requiring that the industry remain in charge.
  • Increase our area’s share of royalty money from drilling.
  • Allow revenue from drilling royalties to be used for things other than roads.
  • Require upstream sources of pollution (sewage systems, agriculture, etc.) to contribute to a fund to mitigate the effects of their pollution on the Mobile Bay watershed (modeled on programs already in place to protect the Chesapeake Bay and other estuaries).
  • Reduce our dependence on oil.
  • Explore new power-generation technologies such as wave-powered generators.
  • Promote “green” modes of transportation.
  • Stop offshore drilling entirely.
  • Promote smart growth. Encourage communities to develop in a more dense fashion.
  • Promote or require “green” building techniques.
  • Implement projects designed to increase tourism/visitation.
  • Increase fish and wildlife habitat offshore and inshore.
  • Provide artificial reefs for pelagic fish species.
  • Recycle concrete for artificial reefs, with preapproved sites.
  • Create fisheries habitat from dismantled bridges.
  • Implement better coordination among state agencies before permitting and selection of artificial-reef sites.
  • Create snorkeling reefs for ecotourism.
  • Use dredge material for environmentally beneficial projects.
  • Build a beach convention center.

In addition:

Do you have or know of any studies, project proposals, research or other material that is relevant to our work? If so, please forward them to Jamie Miller () and Steve Millburg (). Please also forward or let us know about any photographs, charts, tables or other graphics that might be useful.