Oil spills are likely to increase as fossil fuel use tapers, and oil companies put off upgrades to aging infrastructure, experts say.
“It’s time to get this dirty, dangerous and utterly reckless industry out of our coastal waters,” she said.Ĭlimate & Environment California’s offshore oil rigs are decades old, and industry resists decommissioning them Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit that advocates for the protection of endangered species, said in a statement Wednesday that “offshore drilling has fouled our beaches, poisoned our ocean and killed our wildlife.” “You’re asking for more and more spills, and we know that this is just horrific for our coastlines, for our coastal tourism economies, for our marine ecosystems.” “It is clear to me and, I think, clear to anyone who looks at the sort of status of these rigs, that it’s a ticking time bomb,” Min said Wednesday. The oil rigs off the coast and their aging infrastructure continue to pose a serious threat to California’s coast, he said. Dave Min (D-Irvine) said the action is necessary to protect the California coastline from another catastrophic oil spill similar to the one in October, which caused widespread environmental damage and led to beach closures that hurt the economies of Orange County coastal communities. The cost of buying out or rescinding those leases is unclear, though the size of the industry suggests that the price tag could possibly cost the state tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. It would also allow the State Lands Commission, the agency with oversight of those contracts, to negotiate a voluntary relinquishment of the leases by oil companies before the state takes action. The legislation would affect 11 oil leases, all off the Orange and Ventura County coastlines. Alarmed by damage caused by a major oil spill off the Huntington Beach coast in October, an Orange County legislator on Wednesday introduced a bill to end offshore oil production from rigs in California-controlled waters by 2024, a proposal sure to face fierce opposition and potential legal challenges from the petroleum industry.
0 kommentar(er)
