Natural oil seeps: Are they dangerous?

BY JERAMY GORDON
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

In a city where $5 a gallon gas prices have become a reality, a local nonprofit thinks it has the solution to eliminating California’s dependency on foreign oil, fixing the budget crisis and making Santa Barbara an entirely “green” region.

A panel of experts on fossil fuels and the environment spoke at a town hall forum at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History on Saturday and, despite a few tense moments, one overlying theme was clear: Americans need to change their thinking on and consumption of fossil fuels.
“If everyone in the world consumed the way we Americans do, we would need 25 planets to sustain us,” said Karl Hutterer, executive director of the museum. “Change can not wait. We need to act now.”
Town Hall 2: Oil in the Channel, was the second in a series of town hall meetings at the museum that focus on contentious issues.
Natural oil seeps and their impact on the environment was at the forefront of discussion.
SOS California, a Santa Barbara-based nonprofit, argued the answer to California’s budget and energy crisis is simple: Just drill.
Santa Barbara is home to the largest natural gas and oil seeps in the Western Hemisphere and the second largest, most active concentration of such seeps in the world. According to modern studies released by California State Lands Commission, there are more than 2,000 active submarine seeps along the California coast and more than 1,200 charted natural seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel, which S.O.S. California co-founder Bruce Allen says are polluting the Channel at an “astonishing rate.”
“You often hear politicians talking about protecting our pristine coastline. Our coastline is not pristine,” Allen said. “Our coastline is the most oil polluted coastline in the United States.”
This, he says, is due mostly to the natural seeps.
“Every day our coastal environment is polluted by natural oil seeps at an astonishing rate of approximately 10,000 gallons per day or 50,000 to 80,000 barrels every 12 months,” Allen said. “The natural seeps don’t garner as much attention as oil spills, but they’re much more pollutant.
“The amount of oil seeping from the ocean floor since 1970 equals more than 31 times the amount of oil spilled in 1969,” he said.
Over a 10-day period in 1969, an estimated 3 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the channel and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara County.
The 1969 oil spill was so large it sparked Earth Day, a national event dedicated to cleaning up the planet.
However, panelist Jon Day with the Energy Division of Santa Barbara County says seeps and spills are incomparable.
“We should be careful when comparing seeps to spills,” Day said. “It overlooks that seeps are natural and have very little impact, while spills can be devastating.”
There is a huge uncertainty, too, on the volume of oil near these seeps, Day said.
“The most reliable estimates are 34 years old,” he said.
Panelist and UC Santa Barbara professor Bruce Luyendyk began studying oil seeps and their impact on the environment in 1994.
In a 1999 paper, he suggested that the reductions in natural hydrocarbon seepage can be attributed to offshore production at Platform Holly, off the coast of UCSB, reducing reservoir pressure.
“I believe oil production can and will reduce seepage, but at what cost to environment? We just don’t know,” Luyendyk said.
“So, what’s the solution?” Allen asked. “There is significant evidence oil extraction can reduce reservoir pressure and seepage pollution.”
Day disagrees.
“Oil development doesn’t necessarily reduce seepage,” Day said, adding that more studies need to be conducted.
Community Environmental Council (CEC) spokesman Michael Chiacos says more drilling is the last thing he and his organization want to see.
Santa Barbara-based CEC is an environmental nonprofit focused on energy efficiency, alternative transportation, and climate change.
“We need to stop hunting and gathering pockets of oil and focus on renewable energy,” Chiacos said.
But Allen and SOS California founder Lad Handelman argue that by allowing drilling near the natural seeps, Santa Barbara can greatly reduce the amount of pollution in its ocean and, through the extra tax revenue, fund research for and implementation of renewable forms of energy.
By the end of the discussion, Allen had Chiacos — a die-hard environmentalist who makes his own biodiesel from local restaurant waste — personally agreeing that drilling may be the right move for the future of Santa Barbara.
Allen said there is potential to drill the equivalent of 1.8 billion barrels of oil from the Santa Barbara Channel from already discovered, but undeveloped fields.
The production of these fields, he said, would bring tax revenues of $1.6 billion per year to the State of California and $330 million per year to Santa Barbara County for the next 20 years.
Money he argued could then be used to build a solar thermal farm that could permanently supply 100 percent free solar electricity to every household in Santa Barbara County and provide a $10,000 credit on a new electric or hybrid vehicle every four years.
“The money could also be used to fund new wastewater treatment facilities and education programs for Santa Barbara,” Allen said.

ON THE WEB
http://seeps.geol.ucsb.edu
www.soscalifornia.org
www.communityenvironmentalcouncil.org