The main part that is scuttled to make the reef is the large metal truss structure called the “jacket”. It’s not smart enough to know whether it was once part of an oil platform, part of a ship, or part of a bridge; it’s a big, dumb, harmless hunk of steel.

Anything that can’t be made pristine is hauled ashore & cut up for scrap.

… the caribou herd “has not only survived, but flourished. In 1977, as the Prudhoe region started delivering oil to America’s southern 48 states, the Central Arctic caribou herd numbered 6,000; it has since grown to 27,128.”

Fact is: the Alaskan Pipeline only made wildlife more frisky!

You’ll rarely see a moose in the open country of Alaska, but you’ll see lots of them in Anchorage and Fairbanks subdivisions where they can’t be hunted. Likewise, bears are rarely seen except on the salmon streams and in the cities and city dumps where they can’t be hunted.

In any event, the Producers went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that the TAPS didn’t interfere with caribou migration or other wildlife. If it has had any effect at all, it has increased the number of caribou by providing a safe haven for them where they can’t be hunted and an 800 mile long corridor of flat, open ground where they can browse.

http://www.thehayride.com/2009/04/scalise-trashes-cap-and-trade.html

Now say “Yes, Moe. I’m sorry that I did that.” Next post.

But the article cited does not establish this connection at all. (No surprise, since the claim is absurd.) Instead it only says that having large objects in the water that can server as shelter and a place for shell fish to attach itself can benefit marine life.

My argument was your use of an absolute.

Are you saying that oil rigs are just as safe to use as artifical reefs than lowering large metal structures to the bottom of the ocean that will just lay there dormant???

I have a bridge I’d like to sell you, since you’re in the market!

If the objective is to benefit marine life by increasing the amount of artifical reefs, then there are better, safer way to do it. How about just having a program that creates artifical reefs? It is very simple to do. All it takes it just to dump large metal/plastic/composit object in the ocean. For example, I once read an article how in New York they threw old metro cars in the ocean, to create large artificial reefs.

Imagine a program where all the old cars, busses, trucks, train cars are first cleaned up from oils, etc, and then dumped into the ocean so the marine life can form around those artifical reefs.

This would achine the objective of benefiting the ocean life, without building all those oil rigs that could break and leak oil And even, if you argue that the chances of accidents are very small, you must acknoledge that there are absolutely no chances of accidents with the program I described above.

Then Reagan decontrolled oil & gas. There was actually an oversupply of both & prices were low for 20 years.

But, OTOH, it’s bad policy for the overall economy & the country’s security. So much for greedy, self-interested oil men.

Any fisherman on the Gulf Coast will tell you where the fish are - near “the rigs” (really platforms, mostly). At the end of a platform’s life, they are often “reefed” - sunk in a controlled fashion in a designated artificial reef area, specifically for marine life & diving. If the oil operator saves money by doing so, the savings are split with the state wildlife dept.

If anything’s detrimental to the marine population, it’s agricultural runoff, which causes an annual “Dead Zone” (scroll down for bibliography). And the main culprit there is BIG CORN, heavily subsidized entrant into the energy industry.

Many don’t know, don’t understand, or don’t care that oil moves form offshore platforms primarily in pipelines, the safest method from an environmental standpoint. The worst method to move oil around is in boats, which sooner or later is going to spill. The less domestic oil we produce, the more foreign oil we have to bring in in boats.

Also in the “don’t know, don’t understand, or don’t care” category is the fact that an offshore operator is required to report any spill of oil which causes a sheen on the water - there is no minimum reportable quantity. See this old diary.

Ahhhhh. Don’t get me started, Moe!