(Louisiana Illuminator) — Let’s say you hired a landscaper to work on your backyard. But they left their trash and broken tools scattered around your property and made you clean it all up. Would you hire that same company to work on your front yard?
The Trump administration would, apparently.
The administration’s proposed five-year program calls for new oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska and, for the first time in decades, off the coast of California. But the same industry that will benefit from Trump’s plan already turned the Louisiana coast into a dumping ground, leaving infrastructure behind to decay and pollute our waters.
We can’t afford more of this. Much of Louisiana’s marine ecosystem has already been sacrificed for profit, and Trump’s plan would be devastating for the Gulf’s remaining manatees, sea turtles, gulf sturgeon and Rice’s whale — one of the world’s most endangered baleen whales, with an estimated population of just 51 animals.
Our sad reality is what happens when the oil industry is allowed to run rampant. It should be a cautionary tale for other states.
There are currently more idle wells than producing wells in the Gulf of Mexico. At least 75% of end-of-lease and idle oil infrastructure off the Gulf Coast is overdue for decommissioning. Hundreds of these wells have sat idle for more than a decade, some far longer. These wells have proven to be dangerous, leaking oil into the water and spewing methane into the atmosphere. In April, Well 59 — an 82-year-old idle well — broke loose and spewed tens of thousands of gallons of pollutants into Louisiana state waters and wetlands.
For decades, operators have also avoided their cleanup obligations, selling off their low-producing wells to smaller companies, leaving their infrastructure to sit idle for some purported future use, or going bankrupt and deserting their platforms. Even though many of these companies raked in enormous profits while their wells were active, their attempts to evade cleanup obligations lead to persistent safety and environmental hazards.
This is California and Alaska’s future if Trump’s five-year plan moves forward. Louisiana can serve as their crystal ball, and the plan deepens the decommissioning crisis in the Gulf.
Long after operators pack up and leave, the underwater world off our coasts will be permanently scarred by rusting platforms and unplugged wells that leak harmful gases and toxins. The fishing industry that helps drive the Gulf Coast and Alaska’s economy could be in peril; so will California’s robust tourism industry and iconic beaches.
This danger is not lost on most coastal politicians, regardless of political party. When news of Trump’s plan first broke, the administration faced so much pushback from states like Florida, South Carolina and Georgia that the entire East Coast was eventually scrapped from the plan. Several top Florida politicians, all Republican, are still working to stop the expansion in the Gulf of Mexico, worried more drilling will harm the state’s tourism industry.
Why should the oil industry expand off the Gulf, California, and Alaska coasts when it can’t even clean up its mess off Louisiana? Once these wells are no longer profitable, the industry will follow its trusted playbook — pack up the equipment that still works and leave the rusting remnants behind for us to deal with.
These companies should be paying to clean up the disaster they created in Louisiana. Instead, they’re bidding on the next marine environment to pollute.
______
Lindsay Reeves is a New Orleans-based attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity's endangered species program.
