[State Report] Coast Park Open to Drilling?

by Adam Lynch
June 22, 2005

Tempers are rising in the concerted efforts to open the Mississippi Barrier Islands to gas drilling. An emergency military spending and tsunami relief bill recently signed by the Bush administration carried an unexpected tag-along, an inserted rider that declares the state the owner of the mineral rights and orders the Department of Interior to allow exploration in the national park and directional drilling under it. More locally, it gives energy companies the right to explore for oil and gas inside a beach side national park replete with protected fish and birds, a large array of sea turtles and the Gulf’s largest concentration of bottlenose dolphins.

Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., inserted the amendment, purportedly at the behest of the Mississippi Development Authority. Mississippi Sierra Club Executive Director Louis Miller says Republican Gov. Haley Barbour actually authorized the rider.

“Cochran has said MDA asked him to put this amendment in, but the MDA works at the will and pleasure of the governor, who makes the appointments. This codifies into law the fact that the park service will allow oil and gas drilling and seismic exploration in wilderness areas. This is precedent setting,” Miller said, adding that he believed the effort was the beginning process in President Bush’s attempt to open U.S. designated wilderness to development.

MDA Executive Director Leland Speed denies that his organization handed Cochran’s office the language for the rider.

“We’re in the economic development business. I don’t have any knowledge of anybody here being involved in it,” Speed said.

Barbour’s office did not return calls. A statement from Cochran’s office defended the insertion, however, calling it a provision that “removes the cloud of confusion over who owns the mineral rights to the Mississippi barrier islands” while “allowing the National Park Service to continue its good work in preserving the natural and historic features of the Gulf Island National Seashore.”

The Cochran amendment kicks off the process of sinking 72-foot drilling platforms within state park waters, in full view of residents and visitors who swarm the Gulf’s bountiful tourist sites and gaming centers.

Beverly Martin, executive director of the Gulf Coast Chapter of the Mississippi Casino Operators Association, said that platforms skulking well inside the horizon would be a threat to the coast’s burgeoning tourist industry.

“We could support oil and gas exploration in the Gulf Coast, but only after an economic impact study and only with a no-drill buffer zone extending 12 nautical miles south (about 25 miles from the beach),” said Martin. “The coast is now looking at more than $1 billion in tourism development currently underway, and in the next three to five years we’re going to have $7 billion. We’re talking about resorts, condominiums, hotels, golf courses, botanical garden projects, all with efforts to capitalize on the gulf view. That view wasn’t supposed to include oil rigs.”

A veritable army of opposition has come out of the woodwork. More heterogeneous than the usual conservationist rank and file, the legion of opposition includes CEOs, residents, tourism employees and the powerful gaming lobby. Local government protest has also been sparked as supervising boards in both Harrison and Jackson Counties have dug in their feet in opposition.
Under public pressure, the MDA agreed to hold a May 24 “informational hearing” on the coast. Observers claim the number of concerned audience members added up to more than 600, with hundreds being turned away because of the limited size of the building.
The MDA scheduled the only official public hearing on the regulations in Jackson on May 27. More than 60 concerned residents and businesspeople attended.

“I’ve never seen such a diverse group of people: young, old, rich, poor, businessmen, conservationists. You name it, they’re all in this,” said Miller about the meetings.

Proponents of exploration say regulation would continue to protect the islands and their wildlife and that modern rigs would leave a very small footprint.

“By the time someone produces natural gas, they will have gone through a number of state agencies and a number of federal agencies,” Joe Sims, president of the Alabama and Mississippi division of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association told reporters, adding that the economic boon to the state would be sizeable. “I use the number $200 million to $300 million over the life of the production,” Sims said.

But that’s not enough, says Louis Skrmetta, president of Ship Island Excursions in Gulfport, who says grumbling has seriously kicked up with the June 12 oil spill in the nearby Breton National Wildlife Refuge.

“We’re already generating $500 million in tourist dollars down here and it’s growing everyday,” said Skrmetta, who gives Cochran the benefit of the doubt, saying he doesn’t believe Cochran knew what he was inserting into the defense bill.

The federal legislation works in tandem with a state law approved last year that allows the state to lease offshore mineral rights in the shallow waters off the state’s barrier islands. The law shifted the responsibility for regulating offshore exploration and seismic testing from the state Department of Environmental Quality to the Mississippi Development Authority—which has no obligation to public trusts and promptly voted in favor of exploration.

Rep. Bobby Moak, D-Bogue Chitto, was one of the House members who voted against that bill.

“The first thing that hit me was why take this away from the department of environmental quality, where it’s been for years and years and all of a sudden flip it over to the MDA, which puts it all under the governor. … Many of us told them way back that if you vote for this, (park drilling) is coming to Mississippi,’ and lo, and behold, here it is,” Moak said.

Moak said the state now needs to “have some protections.” Moak suggested selling the mineral rights to the federal government, possibly to the tune of $300 million or more, with the assurance that those mineral rights will never be available to a private company willing to drill too close to the coast. He said growing outcry among coastal voters had made the issue a sensitive topic in the legislature.

“I don’t think anybody wants to step out on this issue who supported it initially. I think a lot of members of the legislature are now stepping back, questioning if this is what their constituents want,” said Moak. “Right now it’s just the governor and the oil industry on one side and everybody else on the other.”

The MDA may also be caving in to the swell of public demands over the last week. Scott Hamilton, a spokesman for the Mississippi Development Authority, said on June 16 that the agency had heard the coast’s concerns “loud and clear,” telling reporters that the MDA may have slammed the brakes on its streamlined process to establish new regulations for oil and gas exploration. Hamilton said slowing the process would allow the organization to address some of the concerns by residents in the new regulations.

posted by sunshine on 06/23/05 at 08:29 PM

posted by tortoise on 06/30/05 at 03:53 PM