Environmental studies and impact on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf

In 1973, the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management established the Environmental Studies Program (ESP) to conduct studies with the purpose of building a reliable database to help predict, assess, and manage potential impacts from oil and gas development. The ESP, now under the direction of the Minerals Management Service (MMS), includes a major oceanographic research effort that has resulted in an improvement in the understanding of ocean resources through the development of concurrent and parallel programs of scientific research. Between Fiscal Year (FY) 1973 and FY 1987, nearly $100 million were spent on studies of the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) environment through this program. Much of the research conducted under the auspices of the ESP has emphasized the collection of data on the environmental conditions of the Atlantic OCS. The ESP-funded research has also been an important source of information regarding sensitive OCS resources that could be affected by oil spills. These include archaeological resources, fish, benthic organisms, marine mammal and coastal birds and their habitats, the migration routes and calving areas for endangered or threatened species, and estuaries and wetlands. The benefits of this research on the oil spill risk analysis and impact assessment processes are examined in this paper.