Last January, the La Jolla Village News featured a story about two Scripps\u00a0alumnae, Amber Jackson and Emily Callahan, who champion the concept of converting decommissioned oil rigs into sustainable reefs. Now, their\u00a0research into the\u00a0Rigs-to-Reef program, a part of Blue Latitudes, is gearing up for the premiere of a film documenting a recent trip to Malaysia, “Transecting Borneo,”\u00a0on\u00a0Saturday, April 14\u00a0at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s, Sumner Auditorium from\u00a05 to 7 p.m.
\n“Transecting Borneo” delves into\u00a0what\u00a0could be considered a perfect example of the Rigs-to-Reef\u00a0ethos. In the film, the two marine biologists travel to Malaysia to dive from a converted rig that is now functioning as an eco-resort for divers,\u00a0Seaventures Dive Rig. In addition to serving as both a residence and diving locale for guests, the resort is focused on limiting its environmental footprint by operating under a ‘minimum discharge’ policy, \u00a0regularly hosting cleanup dives and ensuring that all hand soap and chemicals used on the rig are environmentally safe.
\nThe Rigs-to-Reef concept has seen great success in the Gulf of Mexico, with more than 500 rigs now serving as artificial reefs,\u00a0the concept is not widely accepted by Californians.\u00a0To combat this and gain traction in California,\u00a0both Jackson and Callahan, along with Claire Gonzales working on the “back end,” piling through data collected by marine biologists,\u00a0taking divers out to the platforms and sharing their research at various speaking events.
\nThe state passed legislation specific to this notion\u00a0in 2010, AB2503,\u00a0which governs marine resources and preservation.
\n“While it is an important piece of legislation, we feel that it doesn\u2019t do enough to\u00a0resolve the issues surrounding the future of aging platforms off the California coastline,” said Callahan. “The biggest issue presented is the liability of the structure. In the Gulf of Mexico, when a platform is reefed, the structure becomes the liability of the state, under California’s current law, it is not clear who would maintain the liability of the structure.” It is important to note, however, that the oil companies will always maintain liability for the well itself in perpetuity.\u00a0
\nSo why, two years later, is this an issue?
\nThe question of how to best decommission California’s platforms came to\u00a0a head\u00a0this past year when\u00a0Platform Holly, a Venoco-owned platform in\u00a0Santa Barbara filed for bankruptcy. Platform Holly,\u00a0which\u00a0had not produced oil since May 19, 2015, when\u00a0an onshore, underground line owned by Plains All American Pipeline spilled more than 120,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean,\u00a0is the first platform eligible for decommissioning in California in more than 20 years.
\nAs a result of Venoco’s chapter 11 bankruptcy, Venoco was forced to “quitclaim” their lease on Platform Holly and the surrounding Ellwood Oil Field, giving it back to the State Lands Commission. California is now responsible for decommissioning Platform Holly, using Venoco\u2019s Ellwood Oil Fields leasing bond, a total of $22 million, to ensure the thorough extraction of the entire platform structure.
\n“Platform Holly is now the liability of the state, which means costs associated with decommissioning will\u00a0affect taxpayers,” said Jackson. “California State Lands Commission is now tasked with planning\u00a0what to do with decommissioned rigs within two-to-three years from now.”
\nAccording to Blue Latitudes’ website,\u00a0Rig2ReefExploration.org, the decommissioning process begins when “the oil well is capped, and the upper 85 feet of the platform is either towed, toppled in place or removed.”
\nThe site also adds that “Not all platforms are suitable as reefing candidates, and in order for any platform to be considered for reefing, it must first undergo extensive ecological evaluations…” While it may seem that this would pit this kind of program against major oil companies, the group has received praise for their work. And although it may seem that the decimation of coral reefs and our oceans has been catastrophic, they remain optimistic. “Oceans are incredibly resilient places,” said Gonzales. “Our work aims to find an area of compromise between industry, science and the public.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last January, the La Jolla Village News featured a story about two Scripps\u00a0alumnae, Amber Jackson and Emily Callahan, who champion the concept of converting decommissioned oil rigs into sustainable reefs. Now, their\u00a0research into the\u00a0Rigs-to-Reef program, a part of Blue Latitudes, is gearing up for the premiere of a film documenting a recent trip to Malaysia, […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":259638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Rigs-to-Reefs program continues to address decommissioned oil rigs head on","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}