There’s no reason not to wait on seismic testing

Recently, tourists in Argentina scooped a baby dolphin from the surf and passed it around to indulge their desire for selfies.

Afterward, they left the dolphin for dead. On the beach. People around the world voiced outrage.

I doubt the tourists intended to kill the poor dolphin, but as an example of clueless cruelty, it’s hard to beat.

I’d like to think we wouldn’t do that in the Cape Region. When marine mammals or sea turtles are stranded, people know to call the MERR Institute, a nonprofit that rescues and cares for these creatures.

But we should be careful about thinking ourselves superior. Off our own coast, we may soon begin killing and inflicting unspeakable pain on marine mammals and other creatures of the deep.

Two weeks ago I wrote about a small contingent of locals who traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby our state’s congressional delegation about the dangers of seismic testing and oil drilling off the Delaware coast.

The Coastal Delaware volunteer lobbyists were part of a larger effort conducted by Oceana, an international ocean conservation organization.

That column centered mostly on the experience of ordinary citizens speaking with Sen. Tom Carper and the staffs of Sen. Chris Coons and Rep. John Carney.

This week I’ll focus on why these citizens are concerned about the issue.

Or perhaps I should say issues. First, there’s seismic testing, which by itself could injure or kill marine life. Then there’s offshore drilling, which could potentially wreck the coastal economy.

And it wouldn’t take a major spill to affect our coast, said Caroline Wood, a campaign organizer for Oceana.

“Maryland and Delaware would be spared from most of the coastal industrialization that Virginia and southeast states would undergo with the introduction of the oil and gas industry into the area,” Wood said, “but you won’t be spared from the day-to-day pollution.”

That includes leakage, common to all drilling operations, and pollution from increased sea traffic.

“And God forbid a catastrophe at the scale of the BP disaster in a hurricane corridor like the East Coast,” she continued.

And for what?

Estimated reserves in the Atlantic might be enough to supply America’s energy needs for between eight and 16 months.

It would be hard to make the case that these reserves are what stand between the U.S. and energy independence.

(Oddly, one of the promises of the “Drill baby drill!” crowd was that offshore drilling would lead to cheaper gas, thus jumpstarting the economy. Now that gas prices have fallen by half, we see headlines like this recent one in USA Today: “Stocks tumble as oil prices plunge 4 percent,” as if low oil prices are harming the economy. What gives?)

As for our local economy, the search for offshore oil and gas would have Delaware bearing some risk while reaping zero benefit.

That’s because the first phase of oil drilling leases, from 2017-22, would be granted for offshore sites from Virginia down to Georgia. Delaware and Maryland would be included in the next phase, beginning in 2023.

Seismic testing off Delaware, however, could begin much sooner, with devastating effects on marine life.

Consider that baby dolphin again. Most of us watching that spectacle, I think, would be horrified.

But we wouldn’t witness the harm caused by underwater seismic testing, unless dead dolphins started washing up on the beach. And that could happen.

Matt Heim of the Assateague Coastal Trust, who was among those speaking to Sen. Carper that day, said the seismic air gun blasts “are known as the loudest man-made sounds on earth.”

The blasts continue for weeks, around the clock, every 10 seconds.

A 2012 article in Scientific American told the story of a massive dolphin die-off in Peru following seismic testing. Counts by volunteers put the toll at 2,800.

According to the article, veterinarian Carlos Yaipen examined 20 or so of the animals and found all had suffered “middle-ear hemorrhage and fracture of the ear’s periotic bone.”

Not only marine mammals could be affected. A 2015 letter to President Obama, signed by 74 marine scientists from the around the world, said, “Seismic surveys have been shown to displace commercial species of fish, with the effect in some fisheries of dramatically depressing catch rates.”

Here’s the kicker: Wood of Oceana said that better technology may soon make the ear-splitting seismic air gun technology unnecessary.

In short, there’s little reason to allow seismic testing and no reason not to wait. Tell your representatives.


Don Flood is a former newspaper editor living near Lewes. He can be reached at floodpolitics@gmail.com.