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New York’s plastic lawsuit against PepsiCo has been dismissed. What’s next?

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Monday, November 18, 2024

Late last month, the New York state Supreme Court granted a request from PepsiCo to dismiss a plastic pollution lawsuit brought against it by the state’s attorney general, Letitia James. The complaint, which sought civil penalties against the food and beverage corporation for causing plastic pollution in the Buffalo River, was “predatory,” according to the decision written by Judge Emilio Colaiacovo. He accused James’ office of making “phantom assertions of liability that do nothing to solve the problem that exists.” PepsiCo “did not pollute the Buffalo River or any other local waterways,” Colaiacovo wrote. “Other people did!” That unusually emphatic dismissal raises questions about similar lawsuits that are pending around the country — as well as the prospect of future litigation to hold companies responsible for the plastic pollution generated by their products. Just one day before Colaiacovo’s decision was released, Los Angeles County filed a similar complaint against PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, arguing that the companies had harmed public health and deceived consumers about the efficacy of plastics recycling. The city of Baltimore has filed its own suit against PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Frito Lay, and plastic manufacturing companies, and two lawsuits in California — one from the state attorney general’s office and one from a coalition of environmental nonprofits — allege that Exxon Mobil promoted plastics recycling despite knowing it would be unable to keep pace with waste generation. But several attorneys Grist spoke with — and James’ office — said they’re not concerned. Jill Heaps, senior legal director for the nonprofit Surfrider, said Colaicovo’s dismissal was “disappointing,” but she anticipates it will be overturned on appeal. “I don’t think it has any negative consequences for the litigation happening in California or elsewhere.” Every year, the U.S. produces 73 million metric tons of plastic garbage, and about 95 percent of it doesn’t get recycled — not just because the U.S. lacks sufficient recycling infrastructure, but because of inherent properties of the material itself. All that nonrecycled plastic eventually gets burned or sent to a landfill, or else becomes litter in the natural environment, where it breaks down into small fragments called microplastics. Scientists have found these fragments in virtually every environment they’ve studied, and in the bodies of hundreds of animal species. In humans, they’ve linked microplastics to health concerns including metabolic disorders and an increased risk of heart attack.  The premise of the New York lawsuit and others like it is that major manufacturers of plastic products shouldn’t just wash their hands of these impacts and blame consumers for improperly disposing of their products. In the view of prosecutors and environmental groups, companies should be financially responsible for managing the pollution they generate. New York Attorney General Letitia James sued PepsiCo in 2023 over plastic pollution in the Buffalo River. John Lamparski / AFP via Getty Images James’ lawsuit was the first brought by a state against a major plastics polluter. In her complaint, filed last year, James described PepsiCo’s trash as a “persistent and dangerous form of plastic pollution.” Her first legal claim against the company was that it had created a “public nuisance” for residents of the Buffalo River watershed. This was based on a 2022 survey of all types of waste along the river, which found that the majority of the waste was plastic and that the leading contributor to that plastic was PepsiCo. The company’s plastic garbage was identified three times more often than that of the second-greatest contributor.  The complaint’s other claim involved consumer protection law: Although PepsiCo had “long been aware” of the environmental and human health risks posed by single-use plastics, James’ office said PepsiCo had obscured these risks in its communications to the public, in part by promoting plastics recycling.  Colaiacovo rejected both of the lawsuit’s claims. He said James “fails to provide any evidence” that PepsiCo knew its plastic packaging would become pollution, and seemed to agree with PepsiCo that it should not be held liable for what happens to its plastic packaging after consumers are done with it. He characterized James’ arguments as a slippery slope that could eventually allow litigation against any company, so long as the plaintiff could construct a conceivable scenario linking an undesired action to a product it makes. Plastic pollution “is a purely legislative or executive function to ameliorate,” he wrote, calling the lawsuit “policy idealism.” Heaps, whose organization is part of the coalition that recently sued Exxon Mobil in California, said Colaiacovo shouldn’t have dismissed the case so early. “The judge’s job in a motion to dismiss is to give all of the assumptions in the favor of the plaintiff,” she said — “to ask: ‘Is it possible to make this argument?’” and then to allow the plaintiff to produce additional evidence to do so. That’s what happened with a similar consumer protection lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Earth Island Institute against Coca-Cola. This August, an appeals court in Washington, D.C., said that Earth Island’s claims were “facially plausible” and that it should have a chance to further substantiate them in the D.C. Superior Court.  Additionally, Heaps noted some other peculiarities in Colaiacovo’s dismissal, starting with a statement that in order for a public nuisance claim to be viable, the product in question must be “defective or unlawful.”  “I don’t know where he made that up,” she said. “I’ve never seen that in any case law.”  Tyson Redenbarger, a civil litigation attorney with the firm Cotchett, Pitre, & McCarthy LLP — which is representing the California nonprofits in their plastics lawsuit against Exxon Mobil — agreed. To justify a public nuisance claim, a product or practice must violate public health, morals, comfort, or other common rights. Redenbarger listed a number of legal products that have been found to have caused a public nuisance, like lead paint sold before 1978, which contributed to widespread health issues. “Defendants always argue, ‘Oh, my product is legal, and I sell it throughout the state,’” he said. “But that’s not the standard for nuisance.” Plastic bottles of Diet Pepsi line a store shelf. Roberto Machado Noa / LightRocket via Getty Images Heaps also called out the decision’s unusually emotional tenor — characterized by, for example, the use of an exclamation point when describing consumers’ responsibility for waste generation, not PepsiCo’s. She said it was “very unusual” to see an exclamation in legal filings: “I was like, ‘Which law clerk wrote that?’” In a statement to Grist, PepsiCo said it was pleased with the dismissal and that it “remains serious about plastic reduction and effective recycling.  “We will continue to collaborate with key partners to advance smart material collection policies, improve recycling infrastructure, boost consumer awareness about the importance of recycling and establish partnerships focused on reducing waste and exploring innovative solutions to plastic pollution,” said the company’s vice president of global corporate communications, Andrea Foote.  Earlier this year, PepsiCo company said it would likely miss a self-imposed deadline to make 100 percent of its packaging recyclable, compostable, biodegradable, or reusable by 2025. Its most recent sustainability update reported a 6 percent increase in the use of virgin plastic, in contrast to the company’s goal to reduce it by one-fifth by the end of the decade. Sumona Majumdar, the Earth Island Institute’s CEO, said she didn’t think the New York state case was a bellwether. Her organization’s D.C. lawsuit has already demonstrated the plausibility of plastic pollution-related consumer protection claims, and a separate lawsuit brought by the Earth Island Institute in California was recently allowed to move forward with public nuisance claims against Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and large consumer goods companies. Sara Gross, chief of the affirmative litigation division for the city of Baltimore, is representing Baltimore in its public nuisance and consumer protection lawsuit against Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Frito Lay, and large plastic manufacturers. “We respectfully disagree with the New York judge’s ruling and intend to proceed with our case,” she told Grist.  A spokesperson for the New York attorney general’s office declined to say whether James would appeal to an appellate court, but they opposed the characterization of their lawsuit as some sort of fishing expedition — seeking to “impose punishment while searching for a crime,” as Colaiacovo put it. “This legal theory is growing, … others are pursuing it, and this one decision is certainly not going to be the be-all, end-all,” the spokesperson said. “We wouldn’t have taken the steps of filing a lawsuit if we didn’t believe that the legal argument had merit.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline New York’s plastic lawsuit against PepsiCo has been dismissed. What’s next? on Nov 18, 2024.

Despite the setback, environmental attorneys think similar litigation can succeed elsewhere.

Late last month, the New York state Supreme Court granted a request from PepsiCo to dismiss a plastic pollution lawsuit brought against it by the state’s attorney general, Letitia James.

The complaint, which sought civil penalties against the food and beverage corporation for causing plastic pollution in the Buffalo River, was “predatory,” according to the decision written by Judge Emilio Colaiacovo. He accused James’ office of making “phantom assertions of liability that do nothing to solve the problem that exists.”

PepsiCo “did not pollute the Buffalo River or any other local waterways,” Colaiacovo wrote. “Other people did!”

That unusually emphatic dismissal raises questions about similar lawsuits that are pending around the country — as well as the prospect of future litigation to hold companies responsible for the plastic pollution generated by their products. Just one day before Colaiacovo’s decision was released, Los Angeles County filed a similar complaint against PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, arguing that the companies had harmed public health and deceived consumers about the efficacy of plastics recycling. The city of Baltimore has filed its own suit against PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Frito Lay, and plastic manufacturing companies, and two lawsuits in California — one from the state attorney general’s office and one from a coalition of environmental nonprofits — allege that Exxon Mobil promoted plastics recycling despite knowing it would be unable to keep pace with waste generation.

But several attorneys Grist spoke with — and James’ office — said they’re not concerned. Jill Heaps, senior legal director for the nonprofit Surfrider, said Colaicovo’s dismissal was “disappointing,” but she anticipates it will be overturned on appeal. “I don’t think it has any negative consequences for the litigation happening in California or elsewhere.”

Every year, the U.S. produces 73 million metric tons of plastic garbage, and about 95 percent of it doesn’t get recycled — not just because the U.S. lacks sufficient recycling infrastructure, but because of inherent properties of the material itself. All that nonrecycled plastic eventually gets burned or sent to a landfill, or else becomes litter in the natural environment, where it breaks down into small fragments called microplastics. Scientists have found these fragments in virtually every environment they’ve studied, and in the bodies of hundreds of animal species. In humans, they’ve linked microplastics to health concerns including metabolic disorders and an increased risk of heart attack. 

The premise of the New York lawsuit and others like it is that major manufacturers of plastic products shouldn’t just wash their hands of these impacts and blame consumers for improperly disposing of their products. In the view of prosecutors and environmental groups, companies should be financially responsible for managing the pollution they generate.

NY Attorney General Letitia James stands in front of stairs wearing a black jacket, with many news microphones pointing toward her.
New York Attorney General Letitia James sued PepsiCo in 2023 over plastic pollution in the Buffalo River. John Lamparski / AFP via Getty Images

James’ lawsuit was the first brought by a state against a major plastics polluter. In her complaint, filed last year, James described PepsiCo’s trash as a “persistent and dangerous form of plastic pollution.” Her first legal claim against the company was that it had created a “public nuisance” for residents of the Buffalo River watershed. This was based on a 2022 survey of all types of waste along the river, which found that the majority of the waste was plastic and that the leading contributor to that plastic was PepsiCo. The company’s plastic garbage was identified three times more often than that of the second-greatest contributor. 

The complaint’s other claim involved consumer protection law: Although PepsiCo had “long been aware” of the environmental and human health risks posed by single-use plastics, James’ office said PepsiCo had obscured these risks in its communications to the public, in part by promoting plastics recycling. 

Colaiacovo rejected both of the lawsuit’s claims. He said James “fails to provide any evidence” that PepsiCo knew its plastic packaging would become pollution, and seemed to agree with PepsiCo that it should not be held liable for what happens to its plastic packaging after consumers are done with it. He characterized James’ arguments as a slippery slope that could eventually allow litigation against any company, so long as the plaintiff could construct a conceivable scenario linking an undesired action to a product it makes.

Plastic pollution “is a purely legislative or executive function to ameliorate,” he wrote, calling the lawsuit “policy idealism.”

Heaps, whose organization is part of the coalition that recently sued Exxon Mobil in California, said Colaiacovo shouldn’t have dismissed the case so early. “The judge’s job in a motion to dismiss is to give all of the assumptions in the favor of the plaintiff,” she said — “to ask: ‘Is it possible to make this argument?’” and then to allow the plaintiff to produce additional evidence to do so. That’s what happened with a similar consumer protection lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Earth Island Institute against Coca-Cola. This August, an appeals court in Washington, D.C., said that Earth Island’s claims were “facially plausible” and that it should have a chance to further substantiate them in the D.C. Superior Court. 

Additionally, Heaps noted some other peculiarities in Colaiacovo’s dismissal, starting with a statement that in order for a public nuisance claim to be viable, the product in question must be “defective or unlawful.” 

“I don’t know where he made that up,” she said. “I’ve never seen that in any case law.” 

Tyson Redenbarger, a civil litigation attorney with the firm Cotchett, Pitre, & McCarthy LLP — which is representing the California nonprofits in their plastics lawsuit against Exxon Mobil — agreed. To justify a public nuisance claim, a product or practice must violate public health, morals, comfort, or other common rights. Redenbarger listed a number of legal products that have been found to have caused a public nuisance, like lead paint sold before 1978, which contributed to widespread health issues. “Defendants always argue, ‘Oh, my product is legal, and I sell it throughout the state,’” he said. “But that’s not the standard for nuisance.”

Diet Pepsi bottles on a shelf, viewed with a fish eye lens.
Plastic bottles of Diet Pepsi line a store shelf. Roberto Machado Noa / LightRocket via Getty Images

Heaps also called out the decision’s unusually emotional tenor — characterized by, for example, the use of an exclamation point when describing consumers’ responsibility for waste generation, not PepsiCo’s. She said it was “very unusual” to see an exclamation in legal filings: “I was like, ‘Which law clerk wrote that?’”

In a statement to Grist, PepsiCo said it was pleased with the dismissal and that it “remains serious about plastic reduction and effective recycling. 

“We will continue to collaborate with key partners to advance smart material collection policies, improve recycling infrastructure, boost consumer awareness about the importance of recycling and establish partnerships focused on reducing waste and exploring innovative solutions to plastic pollution,” said the company’s vice president of global corporate communications, Andrea Foote. 

Earlier this year, PepsiCo company said it would likely miss a self-imposed deadline to make 100 percent of its packaging recyclable, compostable, biodegradable, or reusable by 2025. Its most recent sustainability update reported a 6 percent increase in the use of virgin plastic, in contrast to the company’s goal to reduce it by one-fifth by the end of the decade.

Sumona Majumdar, the Earth Island Institute’s CEO, said she didn’t think the New York state case was a bellwether. Her organization’s D.C. lawsuit has already demonstrated the plausibility of plastic pollution-related consumer protection claims, and a separate lawsuit brought by the Earth Island Institute in California was recently allowed to move forward with public nuisance claims against Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and large consumer goods companies.

Sara Gross, chief of the affirmative litigation division for the city of Baltimore, is representing Baltimore in its public nuisance and consumer protection lawsuit against Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Frito Lay, and large plastic manufacturers. “We respectfully disagree with the New York judge’s ruling and intend to proceed with our case,” she told Grist. 

A spokesperson for the New York attorney general’s office declined to say whether James would appeal to an appellate court, but they opposed the characterization of their lawsuit as some sort of fishing expedition — seeking to “impose punishment while searching for a crime,” as Colaiacovo put it.

“This legal theory is growing, … others are pursuing it, and this one decision is certainly not going to be the be-all, end-all,” the spokesperson said. “We wouldn’t have taken the steps of filing a lawsuit if we didn’t believe that the legal argument had merit.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline New York’s plastic lawsuit against PepsiCo has been dismissed. What’s next? on Nov 18, 2024.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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‘Divorce’ in songbirds: extreme weather pushes couples past breaking point

New research examines the link between extreme weather and divorce in a small monogamous tropical songbird, the Seychelles warbler. Concerningly, extreme rain and dry spells increased divorce rates.

Coulanges/ShutterstockLike humans, many animals form lasting monogamous relationships. Most birds pair up to produce and raise offspring together over many years. However, as with humans, they also commonly “divorce” – terminating the pair bond well before the death of either partner. Our new research examines the link between extreme weather events and divorce in a small monogamous tropical songbird. We found extreme events – at both ends of the spectrum, both wet and dry – increase divorce rates in these birds. With climate patterns becoming increasingly erratic, it’s vital to understand how such extreme events affect the species we share our planet with. If it’s disturbing their love lives, this may have dire consequences for the ability of species to reproduce and survive. Back from the brink of extinction The Seychelles warbler is endemic to the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean. Once on the brink of extinction, with just 26 birds left in the world, this species now has a stable population on Cousin Island. It’s a great conservation success story – to save the species, the entire island and surrounding sea was turned into a nature reserve in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Seychelles warbler pairs can stay together for up to 15 years. But somewhere between 1% and 16% of partnerships break up every year. Why? It’s thought divorcing may allow these birds to correct for a poor choice of partner. A poor match typically results in a failure to produce chicks and fledglings, which makes the birds reconsider their choice of partner and look elsewhere. But sometimes they divorce for no apparent reason. Many factors could misinform these birds, causing them to separate when it is not in their best interests. Maybe even bad weather. Using a unique dataset spanning decades, we determined the relationship status of all birds on the island over 16 years. We then related that to rainfall data from the local meteorological station. Seychelles warblers form tight-knit partnerships and constantly spend time together. Charli Davies Fair-weather friends We found the probability of divorce was closely associated with the amount of rainfall experienced in the seven months leading up to and during the breeding season. Divorce rates spiked both when rainfall was extreme: either very wet or very dry. A super El Niño event in 1997 caused exceptionally heavy rainfall that year: 1,430mm compared with the average 884mm. Many Seychelles warblers divorced that year (15.3%). More couples also broke up in drought years. It seems these birds tend to stick together when the weather is good, but separate when it turns bad. How weather affects partnership stability Divorce in many species is often directly linked to poor breeding success, when a couple fails to rear young in the prior breeding season. But in our study we found no evidence to suggest that’s an issue in Seychelles warblers. While the period of rainfall that predicted divorce also influenced the ability of these birds to produce offspring, failing to become parents did not make Seychelles warbler pairs more likely to divorce. Some birds that divorced did produce offspring successfully, and some that didn’t produce offspring stayed together. This suggests other, more complex factors may be at play. Extreme weather affects the physical environment, changing food availability, habitat and nesting conditions. Prolonged lack of rain before breeding begins can also affect the health of birds. Maintaining the right body temperature during periods of extreme rainfall is challenging for many bird species. This may increase the level of stress birds experience and increase instability in their partnerships. But it may not necessarily result in a failure to breed altogether. Two adult Seychelles warblers tending to their young offspring. Charli Davies What we can learn from this Our new research sheds light on another heartbreaking consequence of climate change: extreme events are destabilising partnerships in wild animals. Birds such as the Seychelles warbler are particularly vulnerable to these changes because, like many other species, their reproductive strategies are closely linked to environmental conditions. As we continue to face the challenges posed by climate change, studies such as this are essential. They offer vital information for conservationists working to protect species that are highly sensitive to their environment. This is especially important particularly for isolated populations that can’t move to adjust. As extreme weather is becoming more common, we will likely see more dramatic shifts in the social structures of many species, affecting not only their survival but the entire ecosystems they inhabit. Frigg Janne Daan Speelman is funded by a PhD scholarship from the University of Groningen and Macquarie University, the Lucie Burgers Foundation, and both the Ecology Fund Grant and Dobberke Grant from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The long-term data collection was supported by Natural Environment Research Council grants.

Animals
Climate
Conservation

Humans are killing off the old and wise animals that hold nature together. Here’s what must change

Like big, tall trees in old-growth forests, older animals are irreplaceable. Pulling them out leaves the ecosystem less resilient to future shocks. It’s time for ‘longevity conservation’ measures.

Laxmikant Ameenagad, ShutterstockIn humans and other animals, ageing is generally associated with a decline in biological function. But scientists are now discovering older animals perform vital roles in populations and ecosystems. Unfortunately, however, old animals can suffer the most from human activity such as over-fishing and trophy hunting. And the value of old, wise animals is not usually considered when we manage animal populations and seek to protect biodiversity. Our new review, published today in Science, draws on evidence from around the world to argue for a new approach called “longevity conservation”. The loss of old and wise animals has devastating global consequences. Clearly, more must be done to prioritise their survival. Benefits of a long life Cold-blooded (ectothermic) animals such as fish and reptiles tend to keep growing throughout their life. This means older individuals are generally larger than younger individuals. 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Many of these functions benefit people too, but are being lost as old individuals are removed from the wild. Fishing has caused a systematic decline in the abundance of old fish, with these aged individuals reduced in 79-97% of the ocean populations examined. Old African elephants and other trophy animals are commonly poached or hunted, both legally and illegally. But the loss of old individuals is not limited to large enigmatic species. Deep-sea coral and Antarctic sponges – which can live for thousands of years – are being harvested, damaged by fishing gear, and affected by climate change. These species cannot be replaced within our lifetime. Species that live to advanced ages are often large, slow-growing, and slow to mature. These traits can make these species more vulnerable to extinction if older adults are killed by humans. But when humans spare old individuals, these long-lived species are more resistant to environmental change and provide more stable ecosystem services, such as fisheries which supply protein to feed the world. Retaining old animals tends to protect populations from poor environmental conditions such as drought and other extreme climate events, allowing species to persist against the odds. This buffering capacity is increasingly important in the face of global climate change. Very old animals, like this 100+ year-old bigmouth buffalo, are declining because of over-harvesting and river regulation. This species is native to rivers of North America. Alec Lackmann Introducing ‘longevity conservation’ Old animals play vital roles in the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Yet harvest management and conservation practices tend not to focus on preserving age structures within populations. And the loss of old individuals is not yet recognised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a means of listing threatened species, or as a type of over-fishing. To protect old individuals and maintain or restore the age structure of wild populations, we propose “longevity conservation” measures. Decisive new policy and actions are needed to protect and restore the crucial ecological roles and services old, wise, and large animals provide. For example, formally recognising and avoiding “longevity overfishing” should be incorporated into fisheries management to help ensure the long-term sustainability of fisheries. Biodiversity conservation and threatened species policies should protect age structure. This is particularly important in long-lived species that produce more offspring with age, or where migration, social networks and cultural transmission of knowledge are required for survival. 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Animals
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Reduce whale-ship strikes by making 2.6% of ocean surface safer, study says

Researchers identify collision hotspots around world but reveal almost all these lack preventive measuresCollisions between whales and ships can prove fatal for the marine mammals, but researchers say expanding mitigation measures to just 2.6% of the ocean’s surface would reduce the chance of such strikes in all risk hotspots.While experts say many whale-ship collisions go unobserved and unreported, making it difficult to put a figure on the scale of the problem, some estimates suggest tens of thousands of the animals are killed each year. Continue reading...

Collisions between whales and ships can prove fatal for the marine mammals, but researchers say expanding mitigation measures to just 2.6% of the ocean’s surface would reduce the chance of such strikes in all risk hotspots.While experts say many whale-ship collisions go unobserved and unreported, making it difficult to put a figure on the scale of the problem, some estimates suggest tens of thousands of the animals are killed each year.Now researchers say they have not only identified hotspots where the risk of collisions is greatest, but revealed almost all of these lack measures to mitigate such strikes.Dr Jennifer Jackson, of the British Antarctic Survey and a co-author of the research, said: “This is the first study to look at this problem at a global scale, enabling global patterns of collision risk to be identified using an extremely large contemporary dataset of four recovering whale species.”Writing in the journal Science, the team report how they compiled a dataset of 435,000 whale locations, recorded between 1960 to 2020, for blue, fin, humpback and sperm whales.“These are four highly migratory species with a global distribution, that have shown evidence they are impacted by ship strikes, and have lots of sightings reports,” Jackson said. “They provide an opportunity to investigate this problem at a global scale.”The team then combined this dataset with more than 35bn positions from 175,960 ships to estimate the risk of whale-ship collisions across the world’s oceans.The results reveal that marine shipping occurs across 91.5% of the combined range of these whales, putting them at risk of collisions.The researchers were also able to identify hotspots – defined as areas with the top 1% of ship-strike risk.While these were mostly concentrated around continental coastlines, and the highest percentage was in the Indian Ocean, the researchers said hotspots were also found in areas of open sea such as the Azores, at least for blue and sperm whales.The researchers added that almost 5% of the hotspots affected three of the four whale species, with almost 20% affecting two of the species.“Over 95% of the risk hotspots for all species were found in exclusive economic zone (EEZ) waters, pointing to the importance of national regulation to reduce this risk globally,” said Jackson.When the team looked at ship-strike management measures, such as speed reduction zones or changes in vessel routes, they found levels of protection varied across hotspots.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionOverall, however, less than 7% of the risk hotspots for any of the four species were covered by voluntary measures, and less than 1% were covered by compulsory measures.Yet such interventions could have a big impact. “Full coverage of hotspots could be achieved by expanding management over only 2.6% of the ocean’s surface,” the team write, with Jackson noting that vessel slowdowns were the most effective way to reduce collision risk.While the threat of collisions has grown with increasing marine shipping, the team said the climate crisis could make the situation worse, noting declining sea ice in the Arctic could open new trade routes and result in whale populations moving northwards.Sally Hamilton, the chief executive of the charity Orca, and who was not involved in the research, said large whales were facing the equivalent of marine motorways.“The shipping industry have an opportunity to put vessel strike at the heart of their environmental strategy by working with conservationists and governments to establish safe marine spaces,” she said. “In doing so they can help undo the damage caused by industrial whaling and mitigate the future impacts of vessel strikes.”Dr Freya Womersley, of the Marine Biology Association, said the research emphasised that wildlife-ship collisions were a global issue and therefore required a global response.“It’s encouraging to see that targeted shipping management – over a relatively small ocean area – could achieve full strike-risk hotspot coverage, making positive conservation outcomes very achievable for these species,” she said.

Animals
Climate
Crisis

The Coyotes Arrived. Now, They’re Changing Angel Island.

Deer and raccoons that once fearlessly roamed the island, have become prey. The post The Coyotes Arrived. Now, They’re Changing Angel Island. appeared first on Bay Nature.

Just over a mile of water lies between Angel Island and the mainland town of Tiburon. During high winds and currents, kayakers tend to steer clear of this channel known as Raccoon Strait, which carries some of San Francisco Bay’s strongest and deepest waters. Nonetheless, some swimmers choose to fight the tides, including Olympians competing in the Tiburon Nautical Mile Swim, and a few furry, four-legged canines with a steadfast determination to reach an island buffet. For as long as California State Parks (CSP) staff can remember, they have never encountered coyotes on Angel Island. Then in 2017, a disbelieving ranger spotted a coyote, and then another one and another one. As the new top predator spreads across the 1.2 square mile island, the cascade of their effects on the local ecology is turning researchers’ heads. Scientists from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) collected data on the island this October, hoping to learn about the coyotes’ watery crossings and impact on the island deer population. “We do know coyotes have been expanding south into Marin County and to San Francisco. They’re already taking exploratory things like going across the Golden Gate Bridge,” says Brett Furnas, a CDFW quantitative ecologist. “So it’s not a stretch that they would, maybe by accident, get swept across to Angel Island, or intentionally do that.” Coyote swimming towards Tiburon from Angel Island this April, its head just barely visible (Left, Photo by Casey Dexter-Lee); Coyote getting its legs wet on the shores of Angel Island looking towards Tiburon (Right, Photo by California State Parks/Bill Miller) The idea of coyotes on Angel Island has been floated before. In 1915, the US Army introduced about 20 Columbian black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus) to Angel Island for hunting, but stopped in the 1950s when the island became a state park. Over the next 50 years, the deer population exploded to as high as 300. It was the state’s highest documented density of deer—a record likely still standing in California.  “The deer were starving and skinny, and there was a concern for the impacts on the island’s cultural plants and vegetation,” says Bill Miller, a CSP environmental scientist. Native plants on the island that deer are known to feed on include sagebrush, chamise, and purple needlegrass. “There were all sorts of suggestions thrown out,” says Miller. “We could relocate some. We could introduce coyotes onto the island. We could maybe introduce contraceptives.” Angel Island fawns lounging in 2010 (Matt Baume via Flickr, CC by-SA 2.0); An Angel Island doe dashing across the street (Torroid via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0) Relocating coyotes to Angel Island was proposed in 1981 by Dale McCullough, a wildlife biologist and former professor at UC Berkeley. He advocated for bringing over a small pack of six coyotes to prey on the sick deer and fawns damaging the island’s trees and shrubs.   Native to California and most of the US, coyotes (Canis latrans) can survive almost everywhere, from dry deserts to foggy coasts. In the past fifty years, their numbers and range have expanded into sprawling cities and suburbs, where they feed on cats, small dogs, rats, trash, and fruit.   McCullough’s coyote proposal, however, fell flat. Originally in favor of the plan, the California Department of Fish and Game succumbed to the backlash from the public and animal rights groups, and withdrew the proposal to naturally control the deer population with predators.  “In the end, state parks went with a culling program, and over the years, it would cull deer every few years,” says Miller. “But then at some point, the culling stopped and the numbers of deer on the island apparently stabilized… Shortly after, the coyotes showed up.” Coyote perched on a rocky outcrop, and a nonchalant pair on the street looping around Angel Island (California State Parks/Michael Dolan) Parks employee Mikayla Smith first saw a coyote on the lawn of the Parks staff residences in 2017. But she was met with disbelief when Parks staff told her coyotes didn’t exist on the island. Her sighting was dismissed until another Parks employee, Andrew Luskus, caught a glimpse of one. When Luskus turned the corner on his bike along the four-mile fire trail that circles the island, he made split-second eye contact with a coyote, before it scampered into the bushes. “Are you sure it wasn’t a dog?” fellow Parks employees asked. He had seen many coyotes during his time as a Parks ranger in Death Valley—he was sure.  Within a year after Luskus’ sighting, Parks staff began hearing them. Ferry workers were seeing them. “I’ve seen coyotes swim across Raccoon Strait,” wrote Ashley Kristensen, the operations manager who has worked at the Angel Island-Tiburon Ferry for 15 years. Aaron Swerkes, a fifth-year ferry captain who has sailed in the Bay for the past thirty years, has seen coyotes in the strait just a couple times since his first sighting about a decade ago. The first litter of pups appeared in 2019. And with it, a trophic cascade—a domino effect that begins when top predators impact the behavior or abundance of their prey, trickling down to the rest of the food chain. Coyote pups in a redwood grove near the southern tip of the island on June 21, 2024 (Omar Babovic)Perhaps the most famous example of a trophic cascade is the reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park, after they were shot, trapped, and poisoned into extinction in the 1930s. Without their top predator, elk were unafraid in the open and as a result overgrazed on young brush and trees, leaving scientists concerned about erosion and plant die-off. From 1995 to 1996, the National Parks Service released thirty-one gray wolves to prey on the elk. In just five years, willow and aspen stands recovered along riverbanks. Beavers and other wildlife began to thrive, and even the course of the river itself changed as a result. At Angel Island, a similar cascade has begun. Now a menu item, deer timidly skirt among shrubs and bushes. “Around the time the last ferry left, the deer would come and hang out on the lawn in the visitors center,” says Casey Dexter-Lee, the State Parks Interpreter II who has lived on the island for 14 years. “Now, they aren’t in this open space as much and are a bit more cautious.” While bucks remain gallivanting the streets, armed with their antlers, fawn and doe are rarer sights. Since the litter’s arrival, Parks staff have not witnessed any deer grow into adulthood, according to Dexter-Lee, though it is possible that they were raised on remote, hidden parts of the island. “I do know that coyotes are eating deer and fawn,” says Miller. “Staff have told me that, and when we were out there last week, I found a deer hoof in coyote scat.”   Angel Island Parks Interpreter II Casey Dexter-Lee looking at some coyote scat on the road, and also, a buck (Jillian Magtoto) Raccoons, too, are no longer a common sight. They used to steal and beg from people, who were concerned about seeing them in the daytime, since it is usually a sign of sickness or rabies, says Dexter-Lee, Now, they’re no longer a problem. Dexter-Lee also wouldn’t mind if the coyotes kept the Norwegian rats under control, which arrived on 19th and 20th-century ships, and have since disrupted the growth of native plants and the wildlife that relies on them. Still, scientists and staff worry that one endemic species could suffer from predation: the Angel Island mole. It’s slightly larger than other East Bay moles with a broader nose, bigger feet, heavier front claws, and slightly darker coloring. “The Angel Island mole is a subspecies of mole that is only found on this island,” says Miller. “But I don’t know what their numbers are or if coyotes are eating them or not.” Raccoon in the brush of Angel Island in 2018 (l Rocky Ordoñez via iNaturalist, CC0); The pictured broad-footed mole (Scapanus latimanus) is found primarily in California and Baja California with at least 12 subspecies, including S.I. insularis on Angel Island. (Bob Dodge via iNaturalist, CC-BY-NC 4.0) As for change in island plant life, so far there isn’t any, says Dexter-Lee. But we can make some predictions. “With less grazing pressure we may see more diversity, an increase in non-resistant browse, and a denser forest with smaller and more abundant stems,” says Miller. For Angel Island, he adds, less deer may mean more oak trees. In a seemingly endless cornucopia of food options, the coyotes appear to live in an island paradise. They regularly munch the fallen fruit beneath the Catalina cherry and Canary Island date palm trees, enriching their varied omnivorous diet. Unrestricted by their crepuscular clock, they encounter visitors and staff at all hours of the day. Trails and roads are overrun by their scat. They loiter among picnic tables where visitors might leave behind crumbs. Since the first litter in 2019, Parks staff have observed small coyotes and pups every year. But the extent of their growth has limits. “There’s only so much food and space to support coyotes on an island,” says Furnas, who leads the CDFW’s investigation of coyote and deer populations on Angel Island. A coyote pounces and triumphantly snacks on an underground critter near the docks and Visitor’s Center picnic tables on Angel Island (Video by Jillian Magtoto)Since September, the CDFW has been collecting coyote scat and installing wildlife cameras to determine their genetics, diets, and movements. The island’s isolation presents a unique opportunity to learn how coyotes control deer populations in a closed environment, says Furnas.  He suspects the coyotes are doing so by feeding on fawns, whose first year of survival is often the most critical limitation for population growth. Whether the coyotes seek food and partners beyond the island, however, remains unknown.  “As long as there is enough food for them, do they stay on Angel Island, or do they go back to the mainland?” Furnas asks. “On islands, you can have genetic inbreeding… So for a healthy population, you’re going to want to have genetic mixing as well.” The CDFW hopes to provide deer and coyote population estimates within a year. Whether it plans to answer other questions of reproduction rates, genetic diversity, and interspecies dynamics depends on if the study continues in the future. But for now, if you find yourself gazing across Raccoon Strait from the island, mainland, or ferry, keep your eyes peeled for a coyote’s head bobbing in the water.

Animals
Extinction
Food

Should Offshore Oil Rigs Be Turned into Artificial Reefs?

Oil rigs around the world are habitats for marine species. When they stop producing oil, should they be removed or allowed to stay?

Even before I could make out the silhouette of Platform Holly on the foggy horizon, I could see and smell oil. Ripples of iridescent liquid floated on the sea’s surface, reflecting the cloudy sky. But the oil wasn’t coming from a leak or some other failure of the rig. Milton Love, a biologist at the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, explained that it was “kind of bubbling up out of the seafloor.” Our boat, less than two miles from the central California coast, was sailing above a natural oil seep where the offshore energy boom first began.For thousands of years the Chumash, an Indigenous group native to the region, identified these oceanic seeps and their naturally occurring soft tar, known as malak, which washed up on the shore. Sixteenth-century European explorers noted oil off the coast of modern-­day Santa Barbara, and in the 1870s the U.S. oil boom reached California. In the late 1890s the first offshore oil wells in the world were drilled from piers off of Summerland Beach; 60 years later the state’s first offshore oil platform was deployed to drill the Summerland Offshore Field.Since then, 34 other oil platforms have been installed along the coast, and more than 12,000 have been installed around the world. These hulking pieces of infrastructure, however, have finite lifetimes. Eventually their oil-producing capacities tail off to the point where it is no longer economically viable to operate them—that, or there’s a spill. Today 13 of California’s 27 remaining offshore platforms are what’s known as shut-in, or no longer producing oil.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Platform Holly is among the dead platforms awaiting their afterlives. At the time of its installation in 1966, everyone knew a platform situated directly over a natural oil and gas seep was going to be a success. And for nearly five decades it was. Then, in 2015, a corroded pipeline near Refugio State Beach owned by Plains All American Pipeline cracked, spilling 142,800 gallons of crude oil into the Santa Barbara Channel. The spill killed sea lions, pelicans and perch, among other creatures; closed fisheries and beaches; and permanently severed Platform Holly from its market.Venoco, the oil company that owned Holly at the time, was not responsible, but it was bankrupted by the event. Because Holly is positioned within three miles of the coast, it was transferred into the hands of the California State Lands Commission (SLC) in 2017. The SLC is now responsible for managing the process of decommissioning the platform and determining its fate.Because Holly is already owned by the state, not an oil company, its transition could illuminate how to evaluate the fate of rigs worldwide based on science, not politics.According to platform-decommissioning consultant John Bridges Smith, a former leasing specialist with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management who counts ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron among his clients, Holly and the eight other platforms whose leases are terminated or expired will be decommissioned by the end of the decade. Based on the original contracts between the oil companies and the state and federal governments, which date to the 1960s, this means the structures will have to be fully removed. In December 2023 the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement recommended that all 23 California platforms standing in federal waters be fully removed.Doing so will incur a great expense. That’s true everywhere but especially in California, where some of the platforms are in very deep water. According to one conservative estimate, completely removing all of California’s platforms would cost the responsible oil companies $1.5 billion. Smith says these companies would prefer to delay that process for as long as possible. Some environmental groups in California, meanwhile, are pushing to hold them to the speediest timeline.Platform Holly, located off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif.Love, who has spent the past three decades studying the aquatic life that now calls southern California’s oil platforms home, would prefer a third alternative.In the decades since they were installed, the steel support structures of California’s oil platforms have become vibrant ecosystems isolated from fishing pressures—de facto marine sanctuaries. Rather than being removed, aging fossil-fuel infrastructure and its serendipitously associated habitats can be salvaged in the ocean as state-­managed artificial reefs. The entire topside—the above-water portion of steel, offices and cranes—and shallow section of a rig are removed, but part of the submerged base may remain. A pathway for doing so already exists in the U.S. and has been successfully followed 573 times in the Gulf of Mexico. Similar examples can be found around the world, from Gabon to Australia. Because Holly is already owned by the state, not an oil company, its transition could illuminate how to evaluate the fate of rigs worldwide based on science, not politics.When an oil platform is decommissioned, the process goes like this: First, in a phase known as plugging and abandoning, its oil wells are filled with concrete and sealed. Next, scientists conduct an environmental review and consider the various merits and risks of different removal strategies. The results determine a platform’s final resting place, which in most cases has been in a scrap metal yard. A platform’s support structure is called its jacket—hundreds of vertical feet of woven steel that is affixed to the bottom of the ocean. Most of the time engineers will use explosives to sever a platform jacket from the seafloor. The steel is then hauled to shore for disposal and recycling. Decommissioning is considered complete when a platform has been removed down to 15 feet below the mud line and the seafloor has been returned to preplatform conditions.Most of the offshore oil platforms that have ever been built were installed in the Gulf of Mexico—more than 7,000 since 1947. More than 5,000 of those have since been removed. In the 1980s oil companies and recreational fishing associations pushed for an alternative outcome that would both be cheaper and help to bolster struggling fish populations. In 1984 the U.S. Congress passed the National Fisheries Enhancement Act, providing for the creation of the National Artificial Reef Plan, which allowed oil platform operators to donate decommissioned rigs to states as “artificial reefs.”In the following years Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama each passed the necessary legislation and established their own State Artificial Reef Programs. These were, and still are, funded by oil and gas contributions and the interest earned on those payments. The program hasn’t replaced full removals; between 1987 and 2017 only 11 percent of all decommissioned oil platforms off Louisiana were partially removed. But in deeper waters, the story is different: of the 15 structures decommissioned in depths greater than 400 feet, 14 have been partially removed, or “reefed.”Offshore oil infrastructure in California acts as a nursery for certain fish species.When a platform is partially removed, its topside is taken to shore. To avoid creating a navigational hazard, the first 80 to 85 feet of its jacket closest to the surface are either brought ashore or laid along the sea bottom. Finally, the remaining jacket—whether it is 15 feet of steel or hundreds—is either left in place or severed from the seafloor and towed to an approved reefing site. Liability for the reefed structure gets transferred from the oil company to the state, and the oil company donates 50 percent of its cost savings (from doing a partial removal versus a full removal) to the state. This process, colloquially referred to as rigs-to-reefs, has successfully bolstered fish populations in the Gulf.Ann Scarborough Bull, a U.C.S.B. biologist who studies the ecology of offshore oil platforms and renewable energy installations, worked in the Gulf of Mexico on offshore oil and gas regulation for 14 years. She arrived in 1975, when her husband took a job in the highly profitable offshore oil industry. When it came to oil platform ecology, “the Gulf of Mexico hadn’t been studied,” Bull says. She took a job as a chief scientist for the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which has since been reorganized into the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and received funding to research the communities of fish and invertebrates dwelling underneath the platforms. On her frequent trips offshore, it became clear to her that the rig jackets provided habitat that was vital to the region’s economy.Lutjanus campechanus, commonly known as the northern red snapper, is one of the most frequently caught species in the Gulf’s recreational fishing industry. A long-lived apex predator, it is mostly sedentary in its adult phase and restricted to reef habitats. Until the mid-20th century, the primary fishing grounds for red snapper were off the western coast of Florida and in the waters south of the Florida Panhandle.Just as populations in the fish’s historical range were being depleted by overfishing and trawling, red snapper began to shift and expand west across the entirety of the Gulf. Thousands of oil platforms were being installed across the northwestern and north-­central Gulf. Decades of research have shown that with natural reefs few and far between, red snapper were using the oil platforms as a kind of outpost, which allowed their population size to expand significantly.Imagine the Empire State Building extending up from the ocean floor, blossoming with mussels and scallops and sea anemones, providing food to legions of fish.As drilling operations multiplied, commercial and recreational reef-fishing industries grew in tandem. Surveys from the early 1980s indicated that one quarter of fishing trips were associated with oil and gas structures. “This whole society in the Gulf of Mexico grew up with two ways to make a living: one, be a fisherman, and the other, be connected with oil and gas,” Bull says.In 2001 Bull moved back to her native California, and she arrived at U.C.S.B. in 2016. Her experience studying the state’s platforms and coming to understand the surrounding politics has shown her that the differences in platform strategy between California and Louisiana are multifold. “There are factions, especially in Santa Barbara, that absolutely despise oil and gas companies,” Bull says. This animosity, she explains, makes the rigs-to-reefs process a harder sell.It’s not unwarranted. On January 28, 1969, a blowout at Union Oil’s Platform A in the Santa Barbara Channel spilled 100,000 barrels of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean. Black tar covered beaches for dozens of miles and killed thousands of birds and marine mammals. At the time, it was the largest oil spill in U.S. history.The spill prompted the first Earth Day and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It also spawned numerous environmental nonprofits in the Santa Barbara region, including Get Oil Out! and the Environmental Defense Center. Development of new oil fields off the coast of California halted and didn’t resume until 1982.Then California’s first decommissionings began. In 1988 Texaco successfully removed Platforms Helen and Herman. In 1996 Chevron removed Platforms Hope, Heidi, Hilda and Hazel from the Santa Barbara coast—but not completely. The cuttings piles—­gigantic mounds of rock debris, mud, and other hydrocarbon detritus discharged by the drilling process—underneath all four platforms were allowed to remain.Linda Krop, now chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center, was then a law clerk with the organization. The group wasn’t too happy that Chevron had seemingly gotten around the obligations of its original contracts, which required full removal of its platforms and restoration of the local environment to its natural condition.“I just think it’s criminal to kill huge numbers of animals because they settled on a piece of steel instead of a rock.” —Milton Love, biologistIn the nearly three decades since, Krop has worked as an attorney holding oil companies accountable for their environmentally destructive actions. She had her greatest court victory in 2016, achieving the termination of 40 federal oil leases offshore. Krop is firmly against the prospect of reefing off California. “The fish are going to be fine if the platforms go away,” she says. “They’re not going to disappear.”In July 2023 I visited Holly with Milton Love on an especially foggy morning. After a 30-minute boat trip from the Santa Barbara Harbor, its skeletal outline began to emerge from the mist. From a distance Holly resembled a skull with barred teeth and low, hollow eyes, but up close it was an eight-story scaffolding of steel beams, pylons and old shipping containers.Holly hasn’t produced oil for a decade, but the whirring and beeping of generators and cranes was still too loud to speak over. People in construction vests milled about the upper decks, ostensibly monitoring the wells’ recent plugging procedure and shoring up the platform. Brown sea lions were flinging themselves from the ocean onto the platform’s lower decks, howling and jostling for space. Love told me that what we were seeing was only a small piece of the action. The real story, he said, was hidden below the waterline, where the mechanical noise dims and is replaced by the crackle of shrimp and fish nibbling at the reef.The platform jackets are covered in millions of organisms and provide habitat for thousands of fish. Some of California’s 27 platforms are relatively small; Holly stands in only 211 feet of water. Others, such as the Exxon-­built Harmony, stand in depths up to 1,198 feet. Imagine the Empire State Building extending up from the ocean floor, blossoming with mussels and scallops and sea anemones, providing food to legions of fish. According to a 2014 paper co-authored by Love, these platforms are among the most productive marine fish habitats in the world and, per cubic meter of seafloor, are more productive than any natural reef.In 2019 the Gulf recreational fishing community took more than 50 million trips and caught 332.5 million fish. But recreational fishing off the coast of California is nowhere near as big. And because of the more than 120,000 acres of natural rock reef along the state’s coast and Channel Islands, the amount of habitat area generated by the rigs does not significantly alter the total regional habitat area or increase the carrying capacity of the fish population. In contrast, the Gulf platforms contribute 30 percent of their region’s total “reef” habitat area.Love argues that California’s platform ecosystems are vital for different reasons. After finishing his Ph.D. and landing at U.C.S.B. as a research biologist, Love received funding from the National Biological Survey; he wrote a book called The Rockfishes of the Northeast Pacific and set out to study how oil platforms functioned as fish habitats. “Most of the money has always been from the federal government,” Love says. But a “small percentage” came from Chevron and ExxonMobil.Love’s early work laid the foundations for others to research the structures as well. In a 2014 study, quantitative marine ecologist Jeremy T. Claisse, now at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and his colleagues revealed that along the coast of southern California, jacket habitats don’t just support millions of tunicates, barnacles, rock scallops and shrimp; they can be sites of fish production. That means many fishes living on and around the legs grow up there and may either spend the entirety of their lives at one platform or travel elsewhere, bolstering fish populations nearby.Sea anemones live on the shell mounds that form under the platform legs.Bocaccio and cowcod rockfish of southern California’s natural reefs are economically important and at one point were considered overfished. In 2006 Love found that California’s offshore oil platforms contribute 20 percent of the young bocaccio rockfish that survive each year across the species’ entire geographic range, which stretches from Alaska to Baja California. The platforms operate essentially as nurseries, he says, incubating the next generation.Mussels dominate the platform jacket in the first 40 feet of water, forming three-inch crusts around the submerged legs and beams. Barnacles and bivalves extend even deeper. When these creatures die or are dislodged by a storm, they sink to the feet of the gargantuan structures and form shell mounds up to 220 feet in diameter and rising upward of 20 feet from the seafloor. Both among the decaying shell mounds and throughout the crisscrossing beams of the platforms’ midwater sections, juvenile rockfish of the region proliferate.Trapped within these shell mounds, however, are the piles of toxic drill cuttings. Until the late 1970s, regulation to properly dispose of cuttings was fairly loose, and operators would often deposit the debris on the seafloor. In a 2001 study, surface sediments from the shell mound of Platform Hazel, installed in 1958, were found to be lethal to 50 percent of tested shrimp within 96 hours of exposure. Recently installed platforms don’t appear to have the same problem, perhaps because most cuttings must be hauled to shore. In one study, cuttings piles below platforms installed before stricter regulation were found to contain 100 times more volatile organic compounds than a newer platform, Gina, installed in 1980.Love and his colleagues wanted to know if the contamination from cuttings extended to the water column around the shell mound. In 2013 they published a paper that found California’s platforms—regardless of age—were not contaminating their associated fish populations. “We looked at fishes that live around platforms—not just Holly but throughout southern California—and compared the heavy metal concentrations with fishes of the same species on nearby natural reefs,” he says. “There was no statistical difference between what we saw.”Still, people like Krop at the Environmental Defense Center are not convinced any oil infrastructure should be allowed to stay in the ocean. “If we need to build some [more] artificial reefs, then let’s do it the right way,” she says. California has been building its own artificial reefs since 1958, when the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife placed 20 automobile bodies in the waters of Paradise Cove off Malibu. Such artificial reefs tend to be spread over many acres in relatively shallow waters. Platform jacket reefs, in contrast, are not even technically artificial reefs and exist as habitats of extreme vertical complexity and dimension. They are smaller in area yet more productive on average.In 2003 Mark Carr of the University of California, Santa Cruz, wrote that there are few natural rock reefs at the depths of the California oil platforms and none with comparable physical characteristics. If the goal is to contribute to overall reef area, their value is “minuscule.” If, however, the intent is to preserve their unique habitats, their value is “100 percent.”Love has a more irreverent perspective on their value. “As a biologist, I just give people facts,” he says. “But I have my own view as a citizen, which is: I just think it’s criminal to kill huge numbers of animals because they settled on a piece of steel instead of a rock.”Many countries around the world are coming up on the decommissioning of their platforms for the first time. According to Amber Sparks of Blue Latitudes, a company that consults for governments worldwide regarding the environmental effects of their platform-decommissioning practices, there is no international standard for how an oil platform should be reefed.Globally, the process is often ad hoc. Off the coast of Gabon, for instance, high-biodiversity habitats underneath more than 40 active oil platforms are included in a system of marine national parks. In Malaysia, an oil platform has been converted into a resort for scuba divers. With the assistance of Chevron, Thailand established an artificial reef program and reefed seven platforms near Koh Pha-­Ngan in 2020. In waters off the U.K., five platforms have been approved for partial removal, but no full platform jacket has been reefed, and no rigs-to-reef program exists. A 2017 study evaluated the possibility of transforming one U.K. rig into a hub for harvesting wave energy.When a decommissioned platform is removed, so, too, goes habitat area for sea lions and certain fish species.According to Francis Norman, managing director of the nonprofit Center of Decommissioning Australia, there is large demand from recreational fishing communities for artificial reefs—at least off the coast of Western Australia, where more than 40 platforms are stationed in shallow waters. But in the eastern state of Victoria, 23 Exxon platforms in the Bass Strait are in depths up to 525 feet—these structures are too far from land to be seen over the horizon and are not fished because of rough water conditions.Norman says Australia does not have an official rigs-to-reef program, but in 2023 Exxon applied for permits to partially remove 13 of its platforms. The company, he says, withdrew its application this summer after a wave of media reports featured criticism of partial removal.As of August 2024, all of Holly’s 30 wells were fully plugged and abandoned. Jennifer Lucchesi, executive director of the California State Lands Commission, says the facility is being “hardened” so it won’t need 24-hour staffing as it moves into “caretaker” status. Now studies of Holly’s subsurface biology are looking at the platform’s effects on its local marine environment to inform the creation of an environmental impact report, which will review the likely net outcomes of full removal versus partial removal versus no action. The “biological study” component is being prepared by Love, Bull and their colleagues at U.C.S.B.Oil companies are interested in platform reefing because of money, not fish. Partial removal is far cheaper than full removal. Reefing the California platforms instead of eradicating them would net the companies a savings of $150 million and generate $600 million for the state. (Actual costs and savings for removal are likely to exceed these projections by at least a factor of four.) Still, not a single California platform operator has applied to begin the rigs-to-reef process. Smith believes the hesitancy results from differences in policy. Legislation in the Gulf States asks for 50 percent of an oil company’s cost savings to be paid to a state in most cases; in California, it’s 80 percent. And whereas in the Gulf liability transfers to the state, in California it essentially stays with the responsible oil company. Previous attempts, in 2015 and 2017, to amend the legislation in California failed. Krop says groups like hers “would not support making the state liable,” and Smith says that would make reefing “unworkable” for the oil companies. When approached for a comment, Chevron wrote: “We are still finalizing our decision on this issue.”Smith believes the most likely outcome for California’s aging offshore infrastructure will be not full removal or partial removal but indefinite delays. Operators are supposed to submit decommissioning plans two years before a lease ends, but operators for six offshore platforms whose leases ended in 2015 still have not followed through.Oil platforms were designed to be productive for 20 to 30 years, but some are still producing oil after 45 years. No one knows how long they might stand. In one scenario, maintenance may not be properly kept up. This isn’t hard to imagine: Platform Holly fell into a state of disrepair following its operator’s bankruptcy, and ExxonMobil, a prior operator, paid millions to refurbish the platform so it could support the equipment required to plug and abandon its dormant wells.In a soon-to-be-published paper on the topic of delay, Smith discusses a worst-case scenario in which poor maintenance and corroded steel cause a platform to collapse during an earthquake or storm. A pile of steel legs, crossbeams and submerged topside offices would rest like a shipwreck on the seafloor. Most of the midwater organisms would be gone, as would those associated with the lengthy vertical water column. But Love says organisms associated with complex bottom habitats would perhaps flourish. Rockfish and lingcod would swim around the jagged, anemone-covered pieces of broken platform legs and rusted steel, past scurrying crabs, exploring their reconfigured home.In another world, you could see oil companies keeping up with maintenance indefinitely. To prevent the steel legs from rusting and collapsing, they could continue applying zinc anodes to the steel bars, allowing the zinc to rust instead of the legs. “The marine habitat will change with climate change, of course, as everywhere will,” Love says. But the sea lions would stick around on the lower decks, as would the blacksmith damselfish in the shallow waters. The platforms’ topsides, steadfast off the Santa Barbara coast, would be a reminder of an oil-ridden past.

Animals
Climate
Energy

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