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<\/a>The oil drilling platform Holly, sits in the Santa Barbara Channel, California. Photo by Maureen Sullivan\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n
Once everything was in order, the people who worked on the platform in 12-hour shifts around the clock began operating the rig itself\u2014the machinery that would drill 30 wells into the seabed and pump out the ancient hydrocarbons trapped inside it. The two leggeds drilled wells deeper than 1,000 meters. Some of the wells lay as far as 3,000 meters beyond the platform.<\/p>\n
The two leggeds named the platform Holly. It was, for a blink in Earth time, one of the deepest oil platforms in the world.<\/p>\n
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Today, there are more than 10,000 installations fixed or floating in the Earth\u2019s oceans. Many of them are far larger and extend deeper than Holly. Perdido, now the world\u2019s deepest, reaches down 2,400 meters to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Made in Finland, it took three months to reach its resting place.<\/p>\n
Only the oil industry has the ambition and funds to build such elaborate structures in our oceans. And because the oil industry has a lot of ambition and a lot of funds, it has built a lot of structures like Holly over the last 80 years or so: in the Gulf of Mexico, where the platforms are most numerous, an archipelago of about 6,000 of these artificial islands runs the length of the coast from Alabama all the way to the US-Mexico border.<\/p>\n
The oil companies that underwrote the platforms and the engineers who designed them did not set out to create new habitat for wildlife underneath the massive structures, but that\u2019s exactly what they did. What makes Holly a good design for oil extraction\u2014four massive steel legs that run the depth of the water column, braced by beams that run horizontally, vertically, and diagonally to make an open weave that quickly dissipates ocean energy\u2014is also what makes it an excellent habitat for sheltering an amazing diversity of sea creatures from sharks, turtles, and dolphins to the tiny hard and soft coral polyps that crust over the metal legs and transform them into a riot of color and texture, attracting hundreds of thousands of fish into their midst.<\/p>\n
So, the ocean is not as untouched as we two leggeds like to think.<\/p>\n
<\/a>There are about 6,000 oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, from Alabama to the US-Mexico border. Photo by Unlisted Images, Inc.\/Alamy Stock Photo<\/p><\/div>\n
Since the 1940s, the world\u2019s oil companies have been conducting a large-scale (if unintentional) geoengineering project in the oceans, creating new habitats and new ecosystems that would not otherwise exist. These artificial reefs have become so complex and dynamic that one University of Edinburgh project has concluded that \u201cplatform ecosystems are evolving to mimic those in the wild.\u201d Scientists estimate that artificial reefs in the Gulf of Mexico may provide as much as 30 percent of its reef habitat. In California, the marine biologists who study oil platforms have declared them the most \u201cproductive\u201d marine habitats in the world. (They sustain a lot of fish.) Some of these artificial ecosystems closely resemble the natural ones; others are different enough to suggest something entirely new: novel ecosystems that manifest entirely novel qualities.<\/p>\n
This grand (and complicated and problematic) experiment could soon drag to a halt. Most of the world\u2019s platforms are now reaching the end of their \u201cuseful\u201d lives. In other words, the oil platforms aren\u2019t as profitable as they once were\u2014either because the wells are running dry or the price of oil is often not high enough to warrant such a costly and potentially dangerous extraction process.<\/p>\n
Market analysts tend to use active oil rigs as a gauge for how optimistic the market is feeling. When the oil market is bearish, offshore production plummets. Then offshore oil is deemed too costly and too risky to extract.<\/p>\n
The challenge is that we two leggeds don\u2019t know how to agree on what happens after they stop pumping oil from these platforms. Do we pull out the structures and consign hundreds of thousands of kilograms of steel\u2014and hundreds of thousands of creatures\u2014to landfill? Or do we simply cap the wells and let the artificial reefs remain mostly intact, to protect the creatures that depend on them for habitat?<\/p>\n
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When ARCO first signed its oil and gas lease with the State of California, Holly\u2019s future seemed pretty straightforward. After the rig was done pumping oil, the lessee\u2014like all offshore lessees in California waters\u2014promised to cap the wells and dismantle its entire steel structure. (Federal regulations require all offshore platforms to be removed within one year of terminating an outer continental shelf lease.) At the time, this made sense: citizens would be assured that oil companies were not going to junk up the ocean with their trash, leaving old platforms to rust and rot.<\/p>\n
But these promises were made before climate change became a mainstream discussion, before so many coral reefs began whitening and dying in waters that are becoming too hot and too acidic for survival. Back then, nobody was thinking of these large steel structures as artificial reefs, or that they might provide important habitat for creatures under threat\u2014often as a consequence of the very activities that oil had fueled.<\/p>\n
<\/a>An oil platform looms over surfers and a kayaker in the Santa Barbara Channel. Photo by Greg Lawler\/Alamy Stock Photo<\/p><\/div>\n
For nearly 50 years, Holly pumped oil for its operators and lined the pockets of executives at ARCO and Mobil and finally Venoco as the platform kept changing hands. Production peaked in 1984. Then, in 2015, Holly stopped pumping, when the Plains All American pipeline that carried its crude to shore broke open and spilled about 3,000 barrels of oil into the ocean. In the history of oil spills, it was a fairly minor one, but it was enough to shutter the platform. Holly\u2019s operator at the time, Venoco, quitclaimed the lease two years later and abandoned the stationary ship.<\/p>\n
Since then, the platform has stood rusting at the edge of Santa Barbara\u2019s horizon as a ward of the state, while different factions argue about its future and who will ultimately pay the cost of dismantling or keeping the structure. Exactly who\u2019s on the hook for what is now a question for the courts to decide.<\/p>\n
Decommissioning a platform can mean many things: put simply, it\u2019s the process of ending operations at an offshore platform. Most often, the process means totally removing the steel structure and capping the wells, so that the seafloor is returned to something resembling its prelease condition, as ARCO originally promised in the 1960s. It usually involves the use of explosives or divers with diamond saws to sever the structure from its base. The structure is then taken to shore for limited recycling; the rest ends up in landfill. So do the hundreds of thousands of creatures that are clinging to it. \u201cThe smell was beyond anything,\u201d recalled one observer, after watching a reef-encrusted platform get pulled from California waters in the 1990s. \u201cYou gotta bury it quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there is another option. At least part of the structure can be \u201creefed\u201d\u2014left in the ocean to continue providing habitat for the creatures that call it home. (How much of the structure is left in place is decided on a case-by-case basis; usually, the actual platform and a portion of the jacket near the surface of the water are removed so that the structure will not pose a navigational hazard for boats.)<\/p>\n
Reefing is an established practice in the Gulf of Mexico, where platforms are more numerous and public sentiment toward oil companies is generally less antagonistic. There, five states have incorporated decommissioned platforms into their artificial reef plans, and more than 500 platforms have been reefed since 1984, when a National Artificial Reef Plan was first introduced. \u201cIt\u2019s a win-win,\u201d says Dale Shively, who coordinated Texas\u2019s artificial reef program until he retired in December 2020. He says a typical four-legged structure can provide several acres of important habitat for tens of thousands of fish. Platform operators like the arrangement because they can save money: reefing costs may be half as much as the cost of removing the whole thing. In Texas, operators donate half of their estimated savings to the state\u2019s artificial reef program. Title and liability of the platform are then transferred from the operator to the state, and the state keeps a slush fund to pay for any future expenses related to maintenance or liability issues. But reefing remains voluntary, and it\u2019s not always desirable or economically or ecologically feasible. Some reefs require more physical modifications to be left in place than others; some are less ecologically productive or poorly situated. (A reefed platform can also be towed to a \u201cbetter\u201d location.) This may account for the fact that only 11 percent of decommissioned platforms in the Gulf were reefed before 2016. The other 89 percent were all removed and towed to land.<\/p>\n
<\/a>The steel frames of oil platforms provide food and refuge for a variety of animals, such as this school of jacks under an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo by Kip Evans\/Alamy Stock Photo<\/p><\/div>\n
The rigs-to-reef arrangement is really just the continuation of a century-old American tradition of building reefs out of all kinds of scrap: toilets, tires, cars, trains, and even battle tanks and fighter planes. If it\u2019s cheaper and easier to sink these objects than dispose of them onshore, owners will do it, and US legislation will generally allow it. This, however, \u201cgives rise to the complaint that reef creation is just a legalized method of dumping waste at sea\u201d as one 1997 industry white paper out of Norway and the United Kingdom observed. This makes the artificial reef itself no less valuable to the inhabitants that depend on it, or to the sport fishers who wish to catch them, but it does make many environmentalists uncomfortable\u2014especially in Europe, where historically there has been greater resistance to repurposing platforms or \u201crecycling\u201d other materials in the ocean.<\/p>\n
No oil platform off California has ever been left in place as an artificial reef at the end of its life, and the size and depth of the platforms make removal far more costly and complicated than for the shallower water platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. A specialized vessel must be brought in from Asia or the Gulf of Mexico just to begin the work. Complete removal of California\u2019s 27 platforms could cost more than US $1-billion.<\/p>\n
In 2010, California passed a rigs-to-reef bill, making it theoretically possible to preserve at least part of the underwater structure to sustain wildlife. Marine biologist and ocean activist Sylvia Earle has spoken out in support of the bill, and a growing number of people and organizations in California now favor reefing, as evidenced by the concerned citizens and organizations who stand up to speak at the town halls that are periodically held to update the public and discuss platform Holly\u2019s future. They see Holly as a test case: a chance to show that reefing can actually benefit wildlife\u2014if someone is willing to let the structure remain. Holly is also the only platform within state waters (as opposed to federal waters) that is deep enough to be considered for reefing.<\/p>\n
Decommissioning Holly will take years to complete, even if it is not reefed. This in itself is a massive undertaking\u2014nearly as massive as building and fastening the rig to the ocean floor in the first place. The same equipment used to begin the life of a well is also used to end it, notes Jeff Planck, one of the overseers of Holly\u2019s decommissioning for the California State Lands Commission (SLC), the agency now in charge of the platform. Making the abandoned platform safe enough to begin capping its 30 wells requires more than 115,000 hours of labor. They are almost rebuilding the whole thing just to remove it.<\/p>\n
But Venoco has left the state a mere $22-million bond for Holly\u2019s decommissioning. Already, the state legislature has had to appropriate $110-million just to complete phase one. The SLC expects that Exxon Mobil, which is deemed partially responsible, will in the end bear the vast majority of the final facility decommissioning costs, about $125-million to plug and abandon the oil wells and another $175-million to dispose of the platform itself.<\/p>\n
When Venoco filed for bankruptcy, Exxon Mobil, the SLC, and other state agencies and creditors began submitting claims. \u201cIt is unknown how much the commission and Exxon will receive from the bankruptcy estate, but it will be a small fraction of the amounts actually expended on plug and abandonment and decommissioning,\u201d says Sheri Pemberton, chief of external affairs and legislative liaison for the SLC, in an email.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the SLC estimates that the platform is costing the state as much as $1-million each month, just to sit in the water. The platform and attendant facilities must be continuously staffed, because hydrogen sulfide will continue to emanate from the wells until they are plugged and abandoned. And that\u2019s without taking into account any of the actual costs associated with decommissioning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been quite litigious,\u201d says Seth Blackmon, chief counsel for the SLC, at one of the town halls, \u201cand I assume it will continue to be so.\u201d<\/p>\n
At bottom, the argument over the future of Holly\u2014the largest platform in the Pacific to be considered for decommissioning\u2014is an argument over what happens after the oil boom. It\u2019s an argument that will repeat itself often in the coming years, as more and more platforms reach the end of their useful life. And it\u2019s an argument that is especially fractious here, in Santa Barbara\u2014the site of the world\u2019s first offshore oil drilling and also the world\u2019s first major oil spill\u2014where America\u2019s environmental movement began.<\/p>\n
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Tunicates and bryozoans were probably the first animals to attach themselves to Holly\u2019s steel jacket in 1966. Next came the amphipods and barnacles. Within two years, barnacles, mussels, and sponges had overtaken the structure. A thick reef crust began to form\u2014as thick as 10 centimeters in places\u2014as more and more invertebrates fixed themselves to the growing artificial reef. Anemones and sea stars arrived. Rock scallops. Limpets and jingle shells. Crabs and more crabs. And because the structure itself casts long shadows in the water column, the way a kelp forest does, it attracted juvenile fish and other prey looking for somewhere to hide.<\/p>\n
Each structure has its own type of life, says Bob Evans, when we spoke by phone. The Santa Barbara photographer began diving in the 1960s. Since then, he has logged more than 5,000 hours underwater, and more than 850 dives on Holly and other nearby Channel Island platforms. He and his fellow divers\u2014often biologists surveying the wildlife beneath the platforms\u2014were amazed by the diversity and size of wildlife they found there. In a single photograph, says Evans, he has counted more than 30 crabs. Mussels, in particular, grow unusually deep and large under Holly. Evans surmises that the larvae, which are usually found drifting in shallower waters, might have attached themselves to Holly\u2019s steel legs when the structure first arrived in the Santa Barbara Channel, floating at the surface for several days before the engineers flipped the jacket and drove the legs into the pilings in the seafloor.<\/p>\n
Below the jacket, mussel shells and other invertebrates accumulated on the seafloor, dislodged from the reef above by routine platform cleaning or heavy swells. (Oil companies typically \u201cclean\u201d the biofouling every six months or so from the top portion of the jacket.) The shell mounds that form below platforms can grow to several meters thick, creating more habitat for octopuses and shrimp, rock crabs and king crabs, and many, many fishes: rockfish, lingcod, poachers, painted greenling, and other benthic species. These mounds also carpet the mud and broken bits of rock brought up from below when the wells were first drilled. It is possible, say scientists, that toxicants could be released into the ocean if the shell mounds are disturbed or dismantled.<\/p>\n
<\/a>The beams and girders of oil platforms provide a place for marine invertebrates to settle and thrive, resulting in a conundrum for biologists and conservationists: leave decommissioned platforms in place as artificial reefs, or remove these \u201cnovel ecosystems\u201d and the habitats they provide? Photo by Phillip Colla\/Blue Planet Archive<\/p><\/div>\n
Holly became known as a hangout for juvenile bocaccio rockfish. This caught the attention of Milton Love, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who began studying platform wildlife in 1995. Bocaccio were of particular interest to him, because they were overfished. Before he\u2019d become a biologist, Love had had a job collecting local species for an aquarium, and he\u2019d noticed an abundance of fish near the platforms. \u201cI thought that was interesting,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth noting that oil platforms also function as mini sanctuaries. Operators in California generally discourage boats from tying up, and some of the platforms are also hard for fishers to get to: they are located in rough waters or too far from shore. Safety regulations may even limit fishing vessel access altogether. Love wondered whether these facts alone were enough to explain the abundance he saw.<\/p>\n
Biologists in general, and the people who study platform wildlife in particular, often argue over whether a specific habitat feature (in this case an oil platform) actually increases the population of a species or whether it simply acts as a meeting place for creatures that would otherwise gather somewhere else.<\/p>\n
Love began to think of ways to investigate whether platforms were aggregating or actually producing more fish. \u201cWhen you see 150,000 baby bocaccio rockfish at a platform, it looks like a good nursery ground. But if you pull out the platform, would the drifting larvae find another reef to shelter in?\u201d<\/p>\n
If yes, then the platform would be superfluous as far as the rockfish are concerned.<\/p>\n
Love and his team began looking at ocean currents. A collaborator created a computer model that could reflect prevailing weather patterns and added in the drifting bocaccio larvae. A lot of them hit the platform. Then Love\u2019s team removed the platform from the model and watched the rockfish drift again. They assumed that bocaccio carried inshore would find their usual nursery sites and survive, while those that drifted out to sea\u2014where there are few natural surfaces to provide shelter and food\u2014would die. Over a three-year period, Love\u2019s team concluded that 70 percent of the juveniles would die if the platform were removed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s true for all platforms, all species,\u201d he cautions. \u201cBut it lends credence that maybe these platforms are pretty good nursery grounds. And if that\u2019s true, then it\u2019s very hard to argue that platforms are not helping to produce fish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Love emphasizes that there is nothing magical about platforms. They are large and span the entire water column, which makes it more likely for larvae to hit a platform than a natural reef. Fish can also migrate down the structure and into deeper water as they grow. In a shallower, natural reef habitat, they would have to leave the safety of their nursery grounds and strike out into the open water in search of a deeper reef as they mature. The structures are also complex, and complexity of a hard substrate is \u201cassociated with marine habitats that have high abundance and diversity of fishes,\u201d as a 2014 research article noted in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>.<\/p>\n Whether you remove an oil platform or leave it in place, the oil from the original wells or the pipelines used to transport the oil can still leak. In 2021, oil from a pipeline between platform Elly, shown here, and the Port of Long Beach, California, leaked, fouling the life living on and near this artificial reef. Photo by Phillip Colla\/Blue Planet Archive<\/p><\/div>\n The article (which Love contributed to) makes a compelling case for the productivity of California\u2019s oil platforms\u2014measured not in the number of barrels pumped but the number of fish a platform might sustain. When the authors compared square meter to square meter, a platform could be as much as 27.4 times more productive than a natural rocky reef located at a similar depth in the same area. The oil platforms reviewed in the paper are, they conclude, among the most productive fish habitats in the world.<\/p>\n The fact that these platforms were never intended to be biologically productive seems irrelevant. Their success, argue the authors, provides us with \u201cinsight into what drives high rates of fish production for both natural and artificial habitats.\u201d Surely this seems especially pertinent now, they say, in an era when \u201chuman activities are threatening fish populations on natural reefs globally.\u201d Understanding how these artificial reefs work could be \u201ccritical,\u201d say the scientists, \u201cin terms of conservation of marine resources.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the ironies in the debate over the future of oil platforms in general, and Holly in particular, is that self-described environmentalists may find themselves arguing for the destruction of wildlife\u2014because that wildlife was underwritten by an oil company. This is especially true in Santa Barbara, where antipathy to oil interests runs high.<\/p>\n Santa Barbara has a complicated relationship with oil. This part of California was the site of the world\u2019s first offshore oil exploration\u2014the first wildcatters drilled oil wells off wooden piers just east of the town in the 1890s. The oil boom drove up real estate prices and trains stopped here to refuel, laying the groundwork for the burgeoning tourist industry. The oil and gas industry remains a significant contributor to the local GDP: in 2017, it generated more than $60-billion in Southern California.<\/p>\n But Santa Barbara was also the site of the world\u2019s original catastrophic oil spill in 1969, just three years after Holly began its operations. The spill happened a few kilometers from Holly, when Union Oil workers tried to cap a well and the gas bubbled up anyway, leaking hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil over 10 days. The oil slick that formed off the coast stretched hundreds of kilometers. People who were there still remember how the ocean went eerily quiet, the sound of the waves dampened by the heavy slick. Oil-smothered waves don\u2019t crash against the beach: they slop.<\/p>\n<\/a>
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