A group of conservation organizations asked a federal judge this week to block the start of seismic airgun blasting for oil and gas exploration in the Atlantic Ocean. It is the same
group that sued the federal government in December to prevent the same activity.
The suit and the injunction contends the Trump administration has given approval to five companies for seismic airgun blasting in violation of three federal laws: the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. The request for an injunction was filed because the suit has not yet been heard.
“This important issue deserves a fair day in court,” said Diane Hoskins, campaign director at Oceana, one of the organizations that is party to the suit. “We can’t let this dangerous activity cause a species to go extinct just so the oil industry can open our oceans to offshore drilling.”
Hoskins is referring to harm environmentalists say will come to mammals — particularly the right whale — from seismic airgun blasting, which the filing says creates one of the loudest sources of noise in the ocean.
The suit claims, “These surveys cover overlapping territory and will likely be simultaneous: the five authorizations allow nearly 850 combined days of around-the-clock activity, amounting to more than five million total seismic airgun blasts.”
Because sound travels farther in the ocean, and marine species rely on sound for communication, locating food, avoiding predators, and navigation, the seismic activity on the scale approved for the five companies will be harmful to marine life, including critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, the suit alleges.
“Up and down the Atlantic coast, businesses, communities and bipartisan elected officials are overwhelmingly opposed to seismic airgun blasting,” said Hoskins. “Every East Coast governor and over 90 percent of coastal municipalities in the blast zone are opposed to opening our coast to drilling – this is ‘States versus President Trump.’ We are going to do everything in our power to stop this unlawful, irreparable and needless harm.”
The towns of Cape Charles, Chincoteague, Exmore, and Onancock, and the boards of supervisors in Northampton and Accomack counties, have all passed resolutions opposing offshore drilling and seismic airgun blasting. The Eastern Shore Tourism Commission has also sent a letter opposing the practice.
The filing also asserts that because the blasts will happen approximately every 10 seconds for weeks or months at a time, there will be overlapping, simultaneous, and cumulative effects greater than the effects of any individual seismic blasting operation. It also takes issue with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) determination that a small number of whales and dolphins would be harmed.
A Dec. 7, 2018, notice published in the Federal Register specified the “incidental harassment authorizations” granted to five companies: Spectrum Geo Inc, TGS-NOPEC, Geophysical Company, ION GeoVentures, WesternGeco LLC, and CGG Services Inc. for their East Coast seismic blastings.
The “harassments” are divided into Level A, those with the potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild, and Level B, those with the potential to disturb a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by causing disruption of behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to, migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering.
Each company has a different zone from Delaware to Florida within which it will conduct activities, but all include the areas off the coast of Virginia and Maryland.
TGS was given authorization for Level A harassments (potential direct injury) for four humpback whales, four minke whales, four fin whales, five Kogia, and three harbor porpoises. Level B harassment authorizations were granted for nine right whales, 56 humpback whales, 208 minke whales, two Bryde’s whales, two sei whales, 1,140 fin whales, one blue whale, 3,579 sperm whales, 1,216 Kogia whales, 12,072 beaked whales, four bottlenose whales, 50 melon-headed whales, six pygmy killer whales, 28 false killer whales, and 8,902 pilot whales. In addition, the permit grants Level B harassment of 261 rough-toothed dolphins, 40,595 common bottlenose dolphins, 821 clymene dolphins, 41,222 Atlantic spotted dolphins, 1,470 Pantropical spotted dolphins, 91 spinner dolphins, 23,418 striped dolphins, 53,728 common dolphins, 204 Fraser’s dolphins, 48 Atlantic white-sided dolphins, 3,241 Risso’s dolphins, and 322 harbor porpoises. That’s 20 Level A harassments and more than 150,000 Level B harassment authorizations for one of the five companies, albeit the largest operation of the five.
Although no harassments of North Atlantic right whales were authorized, the plaintiffs claim the blasts could irreparably harm the species on the verge of extinction because of the blasting’s proximity to migration and calving grounds. There are about 400 right whales remaining in the Atlantic.
The suit also alleges the number of mammals authorized to be harassed is contrary to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which prohibits activities that can disturb, injure, or kill marine mammals, unless NMFS authorizes the activities after making certain findings. “NMFS may give its authorization only if it finds, among other things, that activities will injure or disturb ‘small numbers’ of marine mammals and will have no more than a ‘negligible impact’ on each marine mammal species or stock.
“NMFS’s conclusions that the authorized seismic surveys in the Atlantic meet these requirements defy science, law, and common sense.”
NMFS concluded in its Notice of Incidental Harassment Authorizations that “the best available science” indicates disruption of behavioral patterns is likely (Level B harassment) “and a limited amount of auditory injury” (Level A) may occur for a few species.
“No mortality is expected to occur as a result of the planned surveys, and there is no scientific evidence indicating that any marine mammal could experience mortality as a direct result of noise from geophysical survey activity. … Such authorization was neither requested nor proposed” by any of the five companies, according to NMFS.
Sixteen South Carolina coastal communities and the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce also filed a lawsuit to prevent seismic blasting. That lawsuit has been merged with the one from the conservation groups. Ten East Coast attorneys general, including South Carolina’s Alan Wilson, have intervened in the combined lawsuits.
The Federal Register notice can be read in its entirety at https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2018-26460
The lawsuit can be viewed at
https://easternshorepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Conservation-suit-against-seismic-airgun-blasting.pdf
