'Special Places at Risk'

Yesterday, a guest blog at 1Sky posted a heart-wrenching story about oil from the BP spill coming ashore at Florida's Gulf Island National Seashore, one of 15 special places identified as at-risk in a report by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council. This report, in .pdf form that can by accessed at this link, was written in late May to summarize a just few of the many, many National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, and Seashores at potential risk from the BP oil spill that has now been flowing for over 2 months.

We've seen so many pictures and read so many news reports about the devastation along the Gulf Coast, it's hard to fathom the scope of the treasure that is our Gulf Coast natural habitat at risk. If you are from another part of the country (or the globe), this document is a good place to go to become familiar with the vast area and array of natural treasures preserved along the Coast. Breton Island NWR off Louisiana's coast, among the first areas to be oiled, is

the country's second oldest national wildlife refuge, was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 ....it has been designated by Congress as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. The refuge also is a Globally Important Bird Area.

Terns, brown pelicans, and black skimmers nest here. It is one of only four Gulf of Mexico wintering grounds for redheads, with numbers as high as 20,000. It is a critically important wintering ground for piping plovers, an endangered species.

The Gulf of Mexico is a globally unique ecosystem, including habitats essential to the annual cycles of hundreds of species of breeding, wintering and migrating birds – sea birds, waterfowl, wading birds, shorebirds, raptors, songbirds, and more.

Delta NWR and Pass a Loutre WMA, 50 miles from the drill rig explosion, have also been impacted. These Mississippi Delta habitats are critically important waterfowl wintering areas and migratory stopovers:

What is at stake is enormously important, in the Gulf and beyond – an extraordinarily rich environment that supports a huge quantity and diversity of wading, sea and shore birds, migratory waterfowl and songbirds, crabs, shrimp, and both fresh and saltwater fish.

Grand Bay NWR, in coastal Mississippi and Alabama, protects one of the remaining expanses of wet pine savanna habitat and coastal wetland. Associated areas include the Grand Bay Estuarine Research Reserve and together they make up The Nature Conservancy's Grand Bay Savanna project area, a bioreserve TNC accords 'one of its Last Great Places in America'.

Healthy estuarine salt marshes are among the most biologically diverse habitats in North America. In Grand Bay, this habitat supports many important
species of fish and wildlife. Commercially and recreationally important species of finfish and shellfish such as brown shrimp, speckled trout, and oysters abound here. Sea turtles, bottlenose dolphins and, on occasion, manatees can be found in the
deeper waters of the reserve.

Oil was detected on Alabama's Bon Secour NWR May 12.

The refuge is one of the largest undeveloped parcels of land on the Alabama coast and serves as an example of the Gulf Coast as it once existed. It has been named as one of the 10 natural wonders of Alabama.

Because of its strategic location along the flyway of millions of spring and fall migrants and the habitat it provides, more than 370 species of birds have
been identified on the refuge during migratory seasons, making Bon Secour one of the most important refuges in the national refuge system....[parts of the Refuge]are designated as critical habitat for the piping plover.

Loggerhead and Kemp's ridley sea turtles, both endangered species, nest on Bon Secour NWR beaches. With 4.5 to 5 nests per mile, the refuge has nest densities as high as or higher than many areas along the northern Gulf Coast....Sea turtles move throughout the Gulf and are vulnerable to oil spills at every stage of their lives: in their eggs, as hatchlings heading to the water, and foraging and migrating.

Hundreds of National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, and State Wildlife Management Areas have been identified as at risk from the disastrous BP oil spill, including 31 National Wildlife Refuges alone. But, as the authors stated in their introduction:

This report is not intended to raise useless alarm but to galvanize action. Short-term action is urgently needed.... Every bit as important is long-term action. The BP oil catastrophe is today's overwhelming demonstration of the dangers of America's over-dependence on and over-use of fossil fuels. Besides oil spills, those dangers include emissions of heat-trapping gases that are disrupting our climate..... The disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is a powerful reason, one among many, for us to shift to safer, cleaner, cheaper, and more secure energy resources.

Gulf Islands National Seashore with their beautiful beaches and dunes; St. Marks NWR, where a wintering population of critically endangered whooping cranes is being established; and there are so many others. Please take a look and gain a deeper appreciation of what we all have to lose if the Gulf Coast is damaged. It is time for us all to push hared for passage of energy and climate legislation in the U.S. Senate in the coming weeks.

Fifteen Special Places at Risk:

1. Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas
2. Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, Alabama
3. Breton National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana
4. Delta National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana
5. Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida
6. Everglades National Park, Florida
7. Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge, Florida
8. Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Mississippi and Alabama
9. Gulf Islands National Seashore, Mississippi and Florida
10. John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Florida
11. Key West National Wildlife Refuge, Florida
12. Padre Island National Seashore, Texas
13. Pass a Loutre Wildlife Management Area, Louisiana
14. Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana
15. St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, Florida

President Obama Issues a Call for Action

Tuesday night, President Obama gave a prime-time speech to our nation from the Oval Office, an 18-minute outline of the status of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, ‘the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced,‘ and a look forward.

The President summarized the facts of the oil spill and actions taken by BP and the administration to date to contain the damage. The ‘battle plan’ he laid out included commitments by the government and by BP to clean up the spill. But the critical parts of his speech, in my opinion, were the challenges to restore the Gulf region and to move beyond oil.

The restoration of the Gulf coast Mr. Obama talked about last night is not just the clean-up plan for the area, but also a habitat restoration plan on a large scale. This would address not only effects of the oil spill, but also the effects of decades of wetland and barrier island degradation that have resulted in loss of function of these areas as ecological buffers. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar alluded to this plan recently when he talked about restoring the area to ‘better than it was before’, and Admiral Thad Allen affirmed this in comments to the press. A restoration effort on this scale has been badly needed for a long time, as we saw during the hurricane season several years ago.

I make that commitment tonight. Earlier, I asked Ray Mabus, the Secretary of the Navy, who is also a former governor of Mississippi and a son of the Gulf Coast, to develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan as soon as possible. The plan will be designed by states, local communities, tribes, fishermen, businesses, conservationists and other Gulf residents.

That Obama is going to take this disaster and make it into an opportunity to restore ecosystem function in the Gulf is a huge step forward, and one we should get behind him to support in Congress.

The President also pointed out that the reason BP was drilling a deep ocean well is that all the ‘easy’ oil is gone, leaving us to attempt to extract it from places we shouldn’t have to.

So one of the lessons we’ve learned from this spill is that we need better regulations, better safety standards, and better enforcement when it comes to offshore drilling. But a larger lesson is that no matter how much we improve our regulation of the industry, drilling for oil these days entails greater risk. After all, oil is a finite resource. We consume more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but have less than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. And that’s part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean -- because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.

Obama called out for a shift from oil to alternative energy for our nation. That’s right; he referred to the end of our dependence on fossil fuels!

We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. …Each of us has a part to play in a new future that will benefit all of us. As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs -– but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment. And only if we rally together and act as one nation –- workers and entrepreneurs; scientists and citizens; the public and private sectors.

Responses to the speech were mixed, but the most aggravating were the ones that wanted him to do more, or say more, or provide more detail. I do not know what they were expecting. Did they think Obama was going to issue an executive order moving us along a sustainable energy path? Were they expecting him to embrace whatever pet policy position they hold? What nonsense. They didn’t want to hear what he said and what I heard. The President has asked us to face this task together. We are going to do it. We are going to make the movement.

This was a speech to reassure us that the administration and BP are doing the best they can to contain the spill. It was a way to let us know that we, as a nation, are going to make lemonade out of lemons: by implementing a huge Gulf restoration project, and by moving away from our dependence on fossil fuels.

The House of Representatives passed the ACES bill last summer, and the Senate is on the cusp of moving forward on a climate and energy bill of their own. The President has said it’s time to move forward together. And I, for one, am with him. My job, our job is to join 1Sky, Audubon, or any of a number of advocacy groups to push our Senators to act. Write letters to the editor, make phone calls, and send emails. Are you with me? Are you with President Obama?

[This blog was posted in a slightly different form at DailyKos and 1Sky.]