East Coast seismic testing gets endorsement 0311seismic Contributed graphic By Kate Elizabeth Queram, Halifax Media Services Published: Monday, March 10, 2014 at 15:41 PM. WILMINGTON — East Coast waters are one step closer to opening to seismic testing, following a recent endorsement from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. That endorsement, released in an environmental impact statement on Feb. 27, does not authorize or permit any activities off the coast, and the secretary of the Interior has yet to issue a final decision on the matter. Still, the report is widely seen as the first step toward allowing oil and gas drilling from Delaware to Cape Canaveral, Fla., a chunk of shoreline that encompasses the North Carolina coast. “It’s a long process, but things are in motion,” said Ethan Crouch, chair of the Cape Fear Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. “But we’ve got to have the science in place to understand fully what impacts are going to happen from this type of test.” Conservationists have long opposed the seismic testing process, which uses air guns to determine whether oil and gas deposits are located beneath the ocean floor. Those concerns are largely focused on the potential effects the frequent blasts could have on marine life, particularly the severely endangered North Atlantic right whale. Each air-gun detonation is expected to be around 250 decibels. That sound has the potential to travel for hundreds of miles through ocean water, which could disrupt the migratory patterns of marine mammals that communicate mainly through sound. “Sound travels farther, faster and is amplified in water,” Crouch said. “Nobody knows what that’s going to do to the migratory pattern of right whales.” The federal ocean agency’s proposed plan includes several measures designed to mitigate the expected “mild to moderate” impacts on marine life. Those include closures of testing zones that would coincide with the whales’ migration season, from Nov. 1 to April 30. But the right whales could be present in those waters outside of standard migration periods, said Jackie Savitz, vice president for U.S. Oceans with OCEANA, a national conservation organization. “Right whales use a much larger area than BOEM thought, and they’re there for a longer period of time,” she said. “We have to be really careful.” Several area beach towns have responded formally to seismic testing proposals. In January, Kure Beach Mayor Dean Lambeth signed a letter supporting the process. The mayor received significant backlash from residents who felt he spoke for the town without first collecting public comment, but Lambeth said he sent the letter on his own behalf, not on town letterhead. The Kure Beach Town Council was split on the matter and did not pass a formal resolution. The Wrightsville Beach Board of Aldermen in 2010 passed a resolution opposing seismic testing, but Mayor Bill Blair wasn’t aware of that action and said the current board has no plans to revisit the issue. “I haven’t had any requests from anybody at the beach to take a position on it,” he said. “Currently, it is not on our agenda.” The Carolina Beach Town Council in a special meeting last month unanimously passed a resolution opposing seismic testing, noting specifically that the town is against the process “until such time as all testing options are evaluated and proper assurances for the protection of marine life are established.” Those resolutions will be submitted to the federal ocean agency as part of the ongoing public comment period, which concludes April 7. It’s unclear whether a council statement carries more weight than a letter from an individual resident, but Savitz said the united public opposition to seismic testing in North Carolina could serve as a model for other coastal communities in affected areas along the East Coast. “The people on the coast do not want to see this happen. I think North Carolina is setting up to become a real leader in this, because they’re speaking up,” she said. “They’re coming out to meetings and saying what they want. I hope more coastal towns will follow the lead of Kure Beach and Carolina Beach.”
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 12:27:59 +0000