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2.1.1 



CHANGING EMPHASES IN OCS STUDIES 



Dr. Thomas E. Ahlfeld 



Staff Oceanographer 



Minerals Management Service 



Branch of Environmental Studies 



INTRODUCTION 



The Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the U.S. Department of the Interior is responsible for the leasing 

 and supervision of offshore oil and gas operations on the outer continental shelf (OCS) of the United States. 

 A commitment to obtaining and using environmental information during all phases of the Offshore Oil and Gas 

 Program is demonstrated by the establishment of the Environmental Studies Program (ESP) in 1973. Since its 

 inception, the ESP has expended approximately $470 million towards the collection, analysis, and dissemination 

 of environmental and socio-economic information used to support decision-making in the Offshore Oil and Gas 

 Program. 



The OCS Lands Act Amendments of 1978 provided the ESP with the objective of "... establishing information 

 needed for prediction, assessment, and management of impacts on the OCS and the nearshore area which may 

 be affected." Studies were designed to support four basic ESP goals. 



• Enhance the OCS oil and gas leasing process by providing information on the status of the environment 

 which may be used in predicting impacts. 



• Provide information on the ways and extent that OCS development can potentially impact human, 

 marine, and coastal environments. 



Ensure that information already available, and that to be collected in the future, is in a form that can 

 be used in OCS decision-making. 



Provide a basis for future monitoring of OCS operations. 



These original ESP goals have been expanded, and the current (and planned future) emphasis is on the collection 

 of environmental information used to support post-lease decisions and evaluate operational impacts. Studies 

 designed to monitor the effects of OCS oil and gas development and production activities now represent a high 

 priority to the ESP. 



MAJOR EVENTS AND PAST ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE ESP 



From 1973 to 1978, the focus of the ESP was on baseline characterizations, also called benchmark studies. These 

 were large, multidisciplinary investigations designed to characterize the nature, abundance, and diversity of 

 biological communities, the physical characteristics of the seafloor and overlying waters, and concentrations of 

 certain trace metals and hydrocarbons in the water, sediments, and biota prior to any OCS oil and gas activity 

 in an area. In concept, a series of monitoring studies was to follow each baseline characterization to provide 

 information on changes in environmental characteristics relative to the baseline data as oil and gas activities 

 proceeded. This program design was criticized by internal Department of the Interior reviews for not providing 

 timely and appropriate information for OCS decision-making. Reviews conducted by the General Accounting 

 Office (GAO) and National Research Council (NRC) were also critical of this program design. The NRC review 

 advised that the marine environment is too variable for a statistically valid baseline to be determined in the time 

 frame, and on the spatial scale necessary for projected post-lease monitoring. For these reasons, the ESP was 

 restructured to answer more immediate pre-lease decision-making needs, and the baseline approach was 

 abandoned. The restructured ESP required a clear relationship between a study and OCS decisions and issues. 



From 1978 to 1985, there was considerable emphasis placed on physical oceanographic and marine biological field 

 studies to characterize the ecological resources at risk in various planning areas and to provide data necessary 



