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Chile
MarinePollutionBulletin The Interior Department will request comments from those companies not involved in the process and will consider whether to adopt the recommendations of the compromise plan. The negotiating team arrived at their compromise position by requesting the oil companies to prioritize their interests in the lease areas in the region. To preserve the proprietary nature of this information, an accounting firm was asked to prepare a composite map from the companies' information without revealing specific company priorities. While certainly not yet the perfect process, this protocol for conflict negotiation will be used and refined in other difficult resource management areas.
Drilling Mud Ruling A Federal Appeals Court ruled against the EPA Region X designation of diesel oil as a toxic pollutant in discharge permits issued for offshore drilling operations. In 1984, EPA upgraded diesel oil to toxic status for drilling rig discharges in the Bering and Beaufort Seas without affording the permitted entities the required opportunity to comment. This change in status imposed the very strict 'best available control technology' for discharge of diesel oil, which had previously always been considered a conventional pollutant. The Court did rule against the three oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute, which brought the suit, by upholding limits set by EPA on discharges of barite in drilling muds. Even though EPA could not produce strong evidence for significant environmental impacts from barite discharges, the Court upheld the restriction since they did not impose higher costs on the oil industry, who had already intended to use 'clean' barite in Alaska. The Court also upheld several of EPA's other regulations concerning drilling muds and discharges, including: toxicity testing requirements for driUing muds to determine suitability for discharge; no discharge of drilling muds between the shoreline and the 2 m isobath for three months of the year; restriction on use of biocides in the drilling muds; use of gas chromatography to determine compliance for diesel oil discharges; and use of the 'sheen test' to monitor for prohibited oil discharges.
Atlantic OCS Cancellations The Department of Interior has cancelled two Atlantic OCS oil and gas lease sales due to insufficient industry interest. South Atlantic Sale 90 and Mid-Atlantic Sale
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111 had been scheduled for November 1986 after delays from their originally-scheduled sale dates of January and July 1985, respectively. A Request for Interest will be issued to the industry in 1987 for the next MidAtlantic sale, scheduled for July 1989, and the next South Atlantic sale, slated for February 1990.
Round-the-World News Chile Empresa Maritima del Estado, the owners of the ore/oil carrier Valparaiso which ran aground recently at the mouth of the Talcahuano port in Chile with a cargo of 118,000 tonnes of crude oil (Mar. Pollut. Bull. 17, 289) are looking for an international ship breaking company to scrap the 128,000 tonne ship. The Valparaisowas refloated after the grounding and is now moored in Talcahuano docks where the cargo is being offioaded. The damage to the ships hull, has however been so severe that the owners have given up hope of having her repaired.
Scotland The UK Ministry of Defence has announced that it intends to spend £500,000 on decontaminating the island of Gruinard off the west coast of Scotland. The island has been sealed off since 1943 after being infected with anthrax bacilli during a germ warfare experiment.
Panama Oil spilled from a ruptured storage tank at the Texaco refinery between Las Minas Bay and Cativa Bay, Panama, has been carried onto a marine nature reserve about 4 miles east of Galeta Bay. About 50,000 barrels of light crude of Mexican and Venezuelan origin, drained into Cativa Bay. Unfavourable wind conditions carded the oil past booms, that had originally successfully contained the spill, and onto coral reefs and mangrove swamps on the reserve. The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City has a marine laboratory on Galeta Island and has been studying the reserve for over 20 years. The spill has terminated several ongoing monitoring studies at the Galeta Laboratory and has contaminated a major portion of the reef.
Drilling Mud Ruling A Federal Appeals Court ruled against the EPA Region X designation of diesel oil as a toxic pollutant in discharge permits issued for offshore drilling operations. In 1984, EPA upgraded diesel oil to toxic status for drilling rig discharges in the Bering and Beaufort Seas without affording the permitted entities the required opportunity to comment. This change in status imposed the very strict 'best available control technology' for discharge of diesel oil, which had previously always been considered a conventional pollutant. The Court did rule against the three oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute, which brought the suit, by upholding limits set by EPA on discharges of barite in drilling muds. Even though EPA could not produce strong evidence for significant environmental impacts from barite discharges, the Court upheld the restriction since they did not impose higher costs on the oil industry, who had already intended to use 'clean' barite in Alaska. The Court also upheld several of EPA's other regulations concerning drilling muds and discharges, including: toxicity testing requirements for driUing muds to determine suitability for discharge; no discharge of drilling muds between the shoreline and the 2 m isobath for three months of the year; restriction on use of biocides in the drilling muds; use of gas chromatography to determine compliance for diesel oil discharges; and use of the 'sheen test' to monitor for prohibited oil discharges.
Atlantic OCS Cancellations The Department of Interior has cancelled two Atlantic OCS oil and gas lease sales due to insufficient industry interest. South Atlantic Sale 90 and Mid-Atlantic Sale
340
111 had been scheduled for November 1986 after delays from their originally-scheduled sale dates of January and July 1985, respectively. A Request for Interest will be issued to the industry in 1987 for the next MidAtlantic sale, scheduled for July 1989, and the next South Atlantic sale, slated for February 1990.
Round-the-World News Chile Empresa Maritima del Estado, the owners of the ore/oil carrier Valparaiso which ran aground recently at the mouth of the Talcahuano port in Chile with a cargo of 118,000 tonnes of crude oil (Mar. Pollut. Bull. 17, 289) are looking for an international ship breaking company to scrap the 128,000 tonne ship. The Valparaisowas refloated after the grounding and is now moored in Talcahuano docks where the cargo is being offioaded. The damage to the ships hull, has however been so severe that the owners have given up hope of having her repaired.
Scotland The UK Ministry of Defence has announced that it intends to spend £500,000 on decontaminating the island of Gruinard off the west coast of Scotland. The island has been sealed off since 1943 after being infected with anthrax bacilli during a germ warfare experiment.
Panama Oil spilled from a ruptured storage tank at the Texaco refinery between Las Minas Bay and Cativa Bay, Panama, has been carried onto a marine nature reserve about 4 miles east of Galeta Bay. About 50,000 barrels of light crude of Mexican and Venezuelan origin, drained into Cativa Bay. Unfavourable wind conditions carded the oil past booms, that had originally successfully contained the spill, and onto coral reefs and mangrove swamps on the reserve. The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City has a marine laboratory on Galeta Island and has been studying the reserve for over 20 years. The spill has terminated several ongoing monitoring studies at the Galeta Laboratory and has contaminated a major portion of the reef.