Costumed Delmarvans protest offshore drilling

It was probably the first time in recorded history that an Atlantic sturgeon showed up for a meeting.

It wasn't a real sturgeon, but rather a man donning a costume to punctuate a point: drilling for oil and gas in the Atlantic means hurting that fish, the protestors said.. The man was one of many at a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management meeting held in Annapolis on Monday.

The meeting provided information about the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and the Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Drilling Draft Proposed Program for 2017-2022 currently being drafted by the agency. The protestors were there to protect Assateague and other beaches along Delmarva and across the Atlantic, they said.

Jim Rapp, a Baltimore resident who works on the Shore, joined the group of Surfrider Foundation members, Oceana officials and Assateague Coastal Trust supporters who wore biohazard suits and fish costumes while holding tiny windmills. Rapp's chosen costume was a beach cleanup shirt from 2013 and some stickers with a red "no" sign covering an oil rig.

"As a lover of Assateague and Ocean City, this just makes me nervous," Rapp said.

After a short protest outside, the fish came inside and began talking with bureau experts. They looked interested and quietly listened as the officials spoke.

"I will say, this has been very informative," Rapp said.

The officials were also appreciative of the groups coming to the event. William Y. Brown, chief environmental officer for the bureau, said a part of the Congressional mandate leading the organization to pursue oil and gas in the Atlantic is to put up environmental safeguards.

"It's my job to make sure environmental safeguards do the job," Brown said.

And it is a job he takes seriously, he said, adding he visits Assateague to watch red-tailed hawks. "I love that island."

Sensitivity matters when looking at what areas to drill, he said, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has been working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services in considering possible locations. Meetings like the one held March 9 also help the agency gather information, Brown said.

"That's what these meetings are all about, to gather information to determine if there are additional areas that should be excluded from leasing," he said.

Brown said the bureau is taking a hard look at two canyons off Delmarva: the Wilmington Canyon and the Norfolk Canyon. The Norfolk Canyon is near an area that was considered for a lease sale in 2010.

"They are biodiversity hotspots," he said.

While any drilling in the Atlantic is at least six years away if included in the final plan, nine permits are currently pending with the bureau to conduct geological and geophysical surveys off the Atlantic coast, including off Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has added a number of mitigation requirements for people conducting seismic airgun surveys, including visual and auditory monitoring for marine animals and the incremental ramping up of the loud airguns so aquatic life has time to get out of the area.

Those mitigation requirements give him confidence, Brown said, adding there is no documented scientific evidence of airguns having an adverse effect on marine populations.

Brown said he was appreciative of the groups who came the meeting.

"You need to have people who have unvarnished concern. I'm glad they're there," he said. "I want to see what kind of information people with concerns and science produce."

In addition to concern over a large spill and the potential impacts of seismic testing, the Assateague Coastal Trust has expressed concern regarding small spills or leaks, which they say happen routinely in the Gulf of Mexico.

"There are heavy fines for doing that," Brown said. "I think those spills have proven to be manageable."

The risk of oil hitting the Shore was on Ocean City Beach Patrol member Bill Wise's mind when he attended the meeting. Wise has been on the Beach Patrol since 1962 and said drilling isn't worth the risk.

"It would just break my heart to see something happen," he said.

Another Beach Patrol member, Alex Siegel, shared Wise's sentiment, stating the patrol sees thousands of people come from out of town to the beach each summer.

"We're coming to Annapolis to defend our coastline," he said.

Wearing a weak fish costume, Amy Roe of Newark, Delaware, came out despite Delaware being excluded from the proposed drilling areas.

"We have a really important relationship with the aquatic that doesn't respect that yellow line on the map," she said, referring to state lines.

The bureau will accept public comments for the draft program and the Environmental Impact Statement until March 30. After that, another round of publishing and public comments will be held before the plan is finalized.

rpacella@dmg.gannett.com

302-537-1881, ext. 207

On Twitter @rachaelpacella