Permits could open search for oil off Atlantic Coast

Dan Radel , Russ Zimmer | Asbury Park Press

Show Caption Hide Caption How do they search for oil under the Atlantic Ocean? President Trump signed an executive order in April, opening the possibility of offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in more than 30 years. First, energy companies will survey the ocean floor with sound to try and locate oil reserves.

The new oil rush in the Atlantic has officially begun.

With an executive order, President Trump in April rolled back a ban on oil and gas exploration in the Atlantic Ocean.

Now, energy companies are in a race to figure out what's under the ocean's floor.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday it is considering five permits that are essential to allowing the industry to conduct seismic tests in the Atlantic Ocean.

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Environmentalists opposing the president's action worry about another Deepwater Horizon — a calamity in which 11 offshore oil rig crew members were killed and 4 million barrels of crude spewed into the Gulf of Mexico.

After all, a half-million Shore jobs are supported by tourism and another 50,000 by fishing. Those two industries, which would be devastated by an environmental disaster at sea, account for about one in every eight employed people statewide.

But ocean advocates have another concern ahead of any drilling — the possible harm to marine life caused by seismic surveying.

The equipment used to find subterranean oil reserves requires repeated discharges of piercing sound, which can confuse sea creatures and damage their hearing.

“I think it has an effect on the communication between juvenile marine animals and their mothers," said Bob Schoelkopf, executive director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine. "The interference could separate a whale from its calf, which depends on the mother for nursing purposes."

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Fishermen worry

Commercial fishermen say seismic testing could disrupt their livelihood.

"They need to find a better way to test for oil reserves other than seismic testing," said Captain Jim Lovgren, who sits on the board of directors of the Fishermen's Dock Cooperative in Point Pleasant Beach. "The loud decibels of sound created by it absolutely scatter our fish population."

Meanwhile, the oil industry, some researchers and government regulators all say the mapping can be done responsibly by following carefully considered rules to protect marine mammals and fish populations.

"We do have concerns about how these types of activities may hurt marine mammals but also we believe that we put measures in effect that will allow us to offset them," said Jolie Harrison, chief of the Permits and Conservation Division in the NOAA Fisheries' Office of Protected Resources.

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What's happening?

The applicants — all companies that provide geophysical data to the oil and gas industry — are seeking access to a survey area that stretches from the Delaware Bay south to Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Seismic surveying, sometimes called seismic testing, is a method of using sound and science to create a picture of what's below the surface of the seabed.

Watch the video above for more on the science involved.

Oil and gas exploration requires this kind of intelligence in order to know where to drill.

“Before you're going to do anything else you're going to need the results of those seismic surveys,” said Marty Durbin, executive vice president and chief strategy officer of the American Petroleum Institute, during a conference call last week.

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The problem

During seismic testing, there is the potential for injury to marine mammals or the disruption of their behavioral patterns caused by the testing, which is performed with an instrument called an airgun, said the NOAA's Harrison.

This is referred to as "a take."

"A take would include a mortality, which we certainly do not anticipate here at all," she said. "It includes an injury. When we think of injury from the impact of sound we typically think of hearing impairment, which there is a small potential for here."

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Airguns are towed in an array behind a ship and fire off a pulse of sound toward the sea floor at regular intervals. Different frequencies penetrate deeper and deeper and then the echoes bounce back to sensors that surround the airguns.

The speed by which the different frequencies return creates a comprehensive image of what's below the surface.

To achieve this, the volume of the airgun can be loud, sometimes the equivalent of a jet taking off from 1,000 feet away.

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To safeguard marine mammals, independent observers are positioned on the deck of every ship performing seismic tests. A device is also used to monitor animals below the surface of the water.

If a protected animal, such as a whale, is detected within 5 kilometers of the ship, testing is stopped until they are out of range for at least 30 minutes.

Just a couple years ago, Rutgers Professor Greg Mountain found himself in the middle of a firestorm over seismic testing off the coast of New Jersey.

Mountain, a geologist who is also a researcher with Columbia University's vaunted Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, was trying to gather evidence on the ocean floor of rising sea levels from 30 million to 40 million years ago — information that could further our understanding of climate change.

Mountain says he was under constant criticism for seismic testing from all corners — environmentalists, fishermen, even Gov. Chris Christie.

He was compared to infamous Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele at one point, a charge that Mountain said "almost brought me to my knees."

Mountain, who said he feels "a close connection with the environment," spent months at sea performing these tests and "never once have I seen a harmed animal — never once. No animal floated to the surface, dazed or injured. Nothing. Nada. Zip."

Watch Gov. Christie talk about Mountain's plan in the video below.

NJ sounds off against seismic testing Archival clips off past protests in New Jersey over seismic testing and oil drilling. iPhone by Dan Radel.

The future

While seismic testing might be the battle, the war is offshore drilling.

"Trump’s plans for seismic testing along our coast are not only environmentally damaging on its own, but it will lead to offshore drilling that could threaten our coasts even more,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, in a statement.

Oil spills don't need to be of the magnitude of the BP Gulf spill to be damaging.

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Schoelkopf, of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, recalled the effects of a February 2004 tanker leak of a few hundred gallons of oil that slicked 60 miles along the New Jersey coastline and left globs of tar balls on the beach.

“Being a coastal state just about any amount of an oil spill will have an effect on the ecosystem," Schoelkopf said. "I remember answering calls after an oil barge that leaked oil. It mixed with sand and made tar balls on Brigantine beaches. They were like cement boots for the birds. They couldn’t fly.”

One hundred and sixty-nine birds were affected; 114 died.

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In 2014, the NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration was called to 117 oil spill sites.

Because of ocean currents, a spill wouldn't need to be off the coast of New Jersey in order to effect the Shore.

"If they drill off the South Carolina coast a spill might not reach New Jersey," said Captain Lovgren, who pilots a trawler called the Sea Dragon, "but anything north of Cape Hatteras will get into the Gulf Stream and be carried to us."

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Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com; Dan Radel: 732-643-4072; dradel@gannettnj.com