desroying oil platforms

[deepsouthcharters]

[SIZE=3]This is from an email sent by a friend, you may have seen it but if not I am sure it will get you blood boiling as it did mine!

Accidently drop your boat anchor over coral off the Florida coast and you’ll be fined up to $25,000 pursuant to Federal Regulations. Catch and keep a Gag Grouper, Amberjack or more than 2 Red Snapper per fishing trip in any U.S. Federal waters and you’ll be fined $600 per fish, pursuant to Federal regulations.

Yet endangered coral in the Gulf of Mexico is being blown up, blow-torched, and winched out of the Gulf by the ton to bleach in scrapyards-- as mandated by Federal Regulations. Tons of Red Snapper, Grouper, Amberjack and thousands of other “endangered” or “threatened” fish species are being dynamited in the Gulf of Mexico and left as Shark-chum—as mandated by the same Federal Regulations. Most of these “facilities,” you see, are “dismantled” with explosives detonated around its legs below the Gulf floor. Behold the usual collateral damage here.



the following is from this site: http://blog.al.com/live/2009/06/snap...losioncau.html


Divers say it was like dropping down on a spooky, underwater ghost town. An oil platform 20 miles south of Dauphin Island that is normally swarming with fish was completely barren, with not a living thing in sight Sunday morning.

Only upon reaching the bottom, the divers said, did they discover the bodies. Red snapper, amberjack, spadefish, cigar minnows -- everything that should have been swimming through the platform's legs -- lay dead on the seafloor.

"We had been at one rig earlier that day. It was loaded with fish," said Will Cooksey, who dove the rig Sunday. "At this one, I didn't see anything at the surface, so I just went deeper and deeper, all the way to the bottom. It was real murky, so I flipped on my light and saw dead fish everywhere."

Meanwhile, a photo posted on the Internet fishing Web site www.al.rodngun.com shows numerous red snapper floating on the surface around a platform south of Dauphin Island. That photo was taken Saturday. While conversations posted in Internet chat rooms suggest the fish kills were unrelated and occurred 30 miles apart, it appears they both happened in the same location.

The fish apparently were killed by a 5-pound explosive charge set to begin the process of dismantling a natural gas platform known as Viosca Knoll 77. The reports of dead fish sparked discussion among fishermen, divers and regulators, and were something of a local mystery for a few days.

"We have an answer. I don't like it, but it wasn't pollution," said Vernon Minton, director of the state Marine Resources Division, when asked what killed the fish.

Fishermen on the scene Saturday said they were told to back away from the platform until after the explosion. Once it went off, snapper and other fish floated to the surface.

"We're taking away a platform. The well was plugged and abandoned," said Skip St. Romain, with Knight Resources Inc., which operates several platforms in the Gulf.

St. Romain said the company had approval from the U.S. Minerals Management Service to set the charge and followed requirements designed to protect sea turtles and dolphins from harm. The platform structure will be moved sometime this month. No more explosive charges will be used in that process.

"It's not an abnormal occurrence. The structure and everything is going to be removed. As the state and MMS requires, it will be returned to its natural state of sand bottom," St. Romain said. "The explosion kills fish within about 100 feet of the platform. What happens, not all the fish die. Some are stunned and will actually recover and swim away. But if fishermen are there, they will scoop them up."

State officials said such platform removals are a routine occurrence in the Gulf, which has them worried.

"It concerns me. We are going to make sure it is an issue the Gulf Council discusses," said Minton, who sits on the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, which helps set snapper catch limits.

"I heard there were about 400 snapper. That's about 200 limits of snapper. It concerns me in that we are so rigorous in our limits, and then we have to allow this. We need to work something out so those fish aren't wasted," Minton said.

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[Montauk17]

Amen bro! Damn feds at there finest! Evil SOB's!

[jpeff31787]

i didn't even have to read the first half and i'm already frikin PISSED!!! i would like to give every of those god damn money hungry bastards a butt whooping that would last more than there lifetime and haunt them into there lonely nights in hell

[BassAssasin]

Originally Posted by jpeff31787

i didn't even have to read the first half and i'm already frikin PISSED!!! i would like to give every of those god damn money hungry bastards a butt whooping that would last more than there lifetime and haunt them into there lonely nights in hell

tell em how ya really feel

[SULPHITE]

Ha...about right...dolphins and sea turtles...sounds like a left wing hippie agenda...who cares about the endangered AJ and Snapper???

Typical gov. BS. I guess I need to get out in the street and pour Herseys Chocolate all over my head and scream out BP SUCKS! Oil kills!

[outdoorsman]

They should be fined, just like catching or killing over their daily limit. What happened to dropping the platforms to the sea floor for reefs? I thought that is what they did to them?

[Finfeatherfur]

Originally Posted by corkyfatboy

I wish that was the case! Would be much better for the fishery if wells/platforms were cut to a depth which did not cause a hazard to navigation. Instead, government is paying to have them removed and continually keeping rec fishermen under tight scrutiny and pathetically small limits.

The "government" doesn't pay to have them removed, the oil/gas companies do. And the permitting process to decommission a platform is just as much as drilling a well. Most "reef in place" projects are more expensive than removal of the platform and it takes longer. Again, thanks to your government regulations, this will contiue to be a "normal" occurance until common sense prevails in Washington which I do not think it will happen in our lifetime!