The federal agency charged with protecting endangered species like the brown pelican and the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle signed off on the ’s conclusion that deepwater drilling for in the Gulf of Mexico posed no significant risk to wildlife, despite evidence that a spill of even moderate size could be disastrous, according to federal documents.
By law, the minerals service, before selling oil leases in the gulf, must submit an evaluation of the potential biological impact on threatened species to the , whose responsibilities include protecting endangered species on land. Although the wildlife agency cannot block lease sales, it can ask for changes in the assessment if it believes it is inadequate, or it can insist on conducting its own survey of potential threats, something the agency has frequently done in the past.
But in a letter dated Sept. 14, 2007, and obtained by The New York Times, the wildlife agency agreed with the minerals service’s characterization that the chances that deepwater drilling would result in a spill that would pollute critical habitat was “low.”
The agency signed off on the minerals service’s biological evaluation, even though that assessment considered only the risks to wildlife based on spills of 1,000 to 15,000 barrels — a minuscule amount compared with the hundreds of thousands of barrels now spewing into the gulf. The assessment also noted that even such modest spills carried up to a 27 percent risk of oil reaching the critical habitat for some endangered species.
Much of the first wave of criticism over the federal government’s part in the Deepwater Horizon disaster has focused on the dual role of the Minerals Management Service (renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement last month), which was responsible for both promoting through the sale of leases and for policing it. But environmental groups were also critical of other federal agencies that have watchdog roles and could have exercised their authority to protect the species.
“The Endangered Species Act requires caution, but federal wildlife agencies allowed offshore oil drilling to play Russian roulette with endangered species in the gulf,” said Daniel J. Rohlf, the clinical director of the Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center at Lewis & Clark Law School.
“Would people get on a plane if they knew it had a one in four chance of a major mechanical problem?” Mr. Rohlf asked, adding, “Federal wildlife agencies made conscious choices — under the guise of science — to allow offshore oil drilling with an identical risk of serious harm to endangered species.”
Deborah Fuller, the endangered species program coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service’s office in Lafayette, La., led the team that reviewed the minerals service’s biological assessment. She said that her office recognized that a big spill would be disastrous to wildlife and that it made suggestions for increasing preparedness for the cleanup of a spill as part of an informal consultation on the biological review.
But she said her office did not challenge the minerals service’s assessment of the risk.
“We all know an oil spill is catastrophic, but what is the likelihood it will happen?” Ms. Fuller asked. She said her office had considered that any likelihood under 50 percent would not be enough to require the protections of her office.
“Obviously, we are going to relook at all these numbers for upcoming consultations,” she said.
In considering earlier plans by the minerals service to sell oil leases in the gulf, the Fish and Wildlife Service had decided to conduct its own biological assessment, using its own scientists. But in 2007, the Louisiana office chose to write only an informal letter of concurrence with the minerals service’s assessment, the agency’s lowest level of review. While the wildlife agency could not stop a lease sale, formally disagreeing with an assessment by the minerals service could deter buyers worried about possible litigation by environmental groups.
In its 71-page biological assessment, the Minerals Management Service concluded that the chances of oil from a spill larger than 1,000 barrels reaching critical habitat within 10 days could be more than 1 in 4 for the piping plover and the bald eagle, as high as 1 in 6 for the brown pelican and almost 1 in 10 for the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle. When the model was extended to 30 days, the assessment predicted even higher likelihoods of habitat pollution.
The report described in detail the severe consequences for a variety of species if they were to be affected by oil.
“Heavily oiled birds are likely to be killed,” the assessment said, adding that if the birds did not die, they might suffer from pneumonia or infection.
Stacy Small, a scientist with the , reviewed the biological assessment prepared by the minerals service and the letter in which the wildlife service concurred with the evaluation. “The wildlife risk models apparently weren’t based on large oil volumes and didn’t estimate risk for a worst case, or even really bad case, oil disaster scenario,” she said.
“If they had looked at a 30-day time span for oil reaching shore, the risk would probably have looked a lot higher and maybe triggered a more stringent review under the Endangered Species Act,” Dr. Small said. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like anyone at the agencies asked for that.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/us/06wildlife.html?_r=2About Oceanic Defense
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