Oil Drilling in the Bahamas a BUST
The Bahamas Petroleum Company, owned by a UK firm, began on December 20th in the beautiful blue waters of the Bahamas. But the test well was a bust – on Feb. 7th, the company announced that they had found oil, but not in concentrations necessary to be commercially profitable.
The drilling site will now be permanently capped and abandoned. Environmentalists hailed the decision, although lingering concerns about the well remain.
It is not entirely clear what the future holds, but Bahamas environmental groups have sued the government, and the lawsuit continues. The Bahamas Petroleum Company still has drilling rights, although it is unclear if they will be able to finance new test wells in the area or, given the meager results, will abandon exploratory drilling altogether.
For several years, the Bahamian government has been flirting with the idea of allowing offshore oil drilling in its beautiful crystalline waters, home to one of the most studied dolphin populations in the world. The area the government has opened to offshore oil drilling is 3.9 million acres of water.
The pressure to drill continues, despite tourism being the most important part of The Bahamas’ economy. Such drilling is also a threat to the Atlantic Coast of the United States, where local coastal activists and politicians have been fighting against offshore oil drilling for years.
California waters have been drilled for years, resulting in the massive 1969 oil spill, when there was a blowout of an underwater well, which tarred Santa Barbara beaches with an estimated 3 million gallons of oil. This incident helped fuel the growth of the emerging modern environmental movement. Such an oil spill could tar beaches in The Bahamas for years to come, as the oil takes time to break down. The use of dispersants to control oil includes additional toxic components, further poisons marine life.
The Bahamian government does not have the infrastructural capacity to contain a major oil spill or to make payments to mitigate such a disaster.
Coral reefs in The Bahamas are already suffering from bleaching, likely caused by increasingly warm water from global warming episodes of high temperatures. Adding oil to the mix will be a major threat to the survival of these reefs and the myriad of marine life that depend on them.
The coalition group, Our Islands Our Future, of which the International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island Institute is a member, is now asking the Bahamas government to place a moratorium on existing license agreements and to place a permanent ban on offshore oil drilling in Bahamian waters.
“We live in a country that is blessed with 315 days of sunshine-9 average hours of sun a day,” Duncan added. “We should be taking advantage of the reliable change in tides every six hours. We need the political will to break through the handful of families that import oil into our country."
What You Can Do:
Sign the petition urging Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis to cancel all oil drilling and exploration leases in The Bahamas. Protection of its coral reefs and the general health of the ocean is extremely important to the people of The Bahamas and the world.
Environmental groups Waterkeeper Bahamas Limited and Coalition to Protect Clifton Bay have filed an application in the Supreme Court for judicial review proceedings against the decision to approve exploratory oil drilling in The Bahamas. While the judge did not stop the exploratory drilling, she did allow this important case to go forward. Please consider a donation to the legal case.
Follow the work of the International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island Institute here to receive updates and other news about offshore oil drilling and exploration threats.
Oil drilling at sea and the subsequent noise and oil pollution threatens whales, dolphins, and other marine life with chronic and explosive oil spills while burning oil contributes to the dangers of global warming.
