Rig diving is awesome.
Posted on 04/28/2009 8:13:51 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
The proliferation of marine life around oil production platforms turned on its head every "environmental expert" opinion of its day. The original plan, mandated by federal environmental "experts" back in the late '40s, was to remove the big, ugly, polluting, environmentally hazardous contraptions as soon as they stopped producing. Fine, said the oil companies.
About 15 years ago some wells played out off Louisiana and the oil companies tried to comply. Their ears are still ringing from the clamor fishermen put up. Turns out those platforms are going nowhere, and by popular demand of those with a bigger stake in the marine environment than any "environmentalist." Every "environmental" superstition against these structures was turned on its head.
Marine life had exploded around these huge artificial reefs: A study by LSU's Sea Grant college shows that 85 percent of Louisiana fishing trips involve fishing around these platforms. The same study shows 50 times more marine life around an oil production platform than in the surrounding Gulf bottoms. An environmental study (by apparently honest scientists) revealed that urban runoff and treated sewage dump 12 times the amount of petroleum into the Gulf than those thousands of oil production platforms. And oil seeping naturally through the ocean floor into the Gulf, where it dissipates over time, accounts for 7 times the amount spilled by rigs and pipelines in any given year.
The Flower Garden coral reefs lie off the Louisiana-Texas border. Unlike any of the Florida Keys reefs, they're surrounded by dozens of offshore oil platforms. These have been pumping away for the past 50 years. Yet according to G.P. Schmahl, a Federal biologist who worked for decades in both places, "The Flower Gardens are much healthier, more pristine than anything in the Florida Keys. It was a surprise to me," he admits.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Rig diving is awesome.
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Great pics, I hope you have a ping list.
This is absolutely true. When we had a boat and fished off shore in the Gulf of Mexico we headed straight to the oil platforms. Of course we never let a good weed line go unexplored.
Most people don’t understand that the seabottom is mostly
like a desert, only where there is a break, a reef, an obstruction, rocks, sunken ships and planes, or oil rigs
is there an oasis of marine life.
Some people just think fishing boats go out anywhere and start hauling the fish in, it don’t work like that as any
Captain will tell them.
I have fished the rigs off the mouth of the Mississippi and
the fishing is GREAT. Not to mention that being around some of these floating platforms is one of the most awesome sights of manmade engineering you’ll ever see.
I am proud to have worked for one of those oil companies.
If the environmentalists could just get the fish and other sea life to understand that those yucky oil things are something they should stay away from.
The Florida House just passed a bill authorizing offshore drilling which now goes to the Senate for consideration. Jeff Atwater (R) Palm Beach is the President of the Senate and has indicated his lack of support based mainly on environmental concerns. Governor Crist is also less than enthusiastic.
My mission this week is to email this article to every Florida Senator and Gov. Suntan.
As a diver I can personally attest to that.
Ditto from a former offshore commercial diver in the Gulf. Blue water diving in the gulf is one of my most pleasant memories in my life, absolutely gorgeous, and I recommend any of my fishing friends when in that area, beg, borrow or steal your way out to the blue water for fishing.
You can find links to more articles like this at the following page.
http://www.hotrodscustomstuff.com/Tech%20Articles.html
Scroll down to the “in the news” section. Links to lots of good articles about the “green” scams being foisted on America.
So the Pubs must go 24/7 on drill, baby drill plus get more natural gas domestically and build those nuclear plants. To give up to these whack jobs is just self-defeating.
Frog - what’s it look like below? Is the rig anchored on the seafloor? How deep does it go? What’s the interface between the seafloor and the rig look like? Looks pretty cool from the photo you posted.
You said you where comercial diver did you weld?
What a video! That would be fun to do. Makes me wish I lived on the gulf coast.
No I only did it for a year and a half before I found a better job, and when I was out there I was low on the totem pole during perhaps the worst years of the offshore oil industry, but being out in the blue water was spectacular.
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