I’ve been fishing near the oil rigs off the coast of Santa Barbara a lot recently, thanks to a strong El Niño run of yellowtail (a hard-fighting member of the jack family that visits us during strong El Niños).
While fishing very near the rigs, I’ve been observing closely and thinking hard about their value in terms of life.
I believe those oil rigs offshore create, attract and sustain more life than all of our radical enviro orgs crying, “The sky is falling and the world is being destroyed, so send us your money” can ever hope to accomplish.
These are our Rigs of Life in the sea. For more decades than most of us can remember, they have generated abundant life.
Our ocean and seagoing critters lost big-time when the four inshore rigs off Padero Lane and Carpinteria were removed some years back. They were taken down to the ground, and all that was left were mounds of mussel shells.
There went millions and millions of lives that we desperately need and want in our thriving ocean. Now they are gone.
Let’s not repeat that massive forced die-off by removing any more oil rigs.
There was argument about whether our oil rigs attracted or produced life. That argument is long over. They do both.
They attract sea life and provide sorely needed habitat where they dwell and reproduce at an accelerated pace because there is life-sustaining food and abundant habitat.
The massive amount of life and the interdependencies of the food chain at our Rigs of Life is astounding to look at, even at the surface where so much action happens.
Below the surface those large structural pieces support life ranging from too small to see with the naked eye, to very large critters with large appetites. The whole food chain concentrates around those legs and supporting cross members.
The structure above the waterline serves pinnipeds and birds, which feed on the life below. Our rigs support a wide-ranging variety of sea life.
Arguments about oil have raged and will continue to rage, but the oil rigs are here, and we do consume oil products at a staggering rate, so we need them somewhere.
I’m not one to say put them in someone else’s back yard. Yes, there have been times when accidents and spills have cost lives, yet I’m convinced that over these decades, there has been a massive positive balance in favor of lives generated and sustained.
When I look at the rigs from a close-up and personal perspective while I fish near them, I see the obvious. They are massive life generators and supporters, leading me to call them our Rigs of Life.
We need much more structure such as reefs made of eco-friendly materials and quarry rock (see fishreef.org).
We also need to keep our oil rig structures even after we decommission them, because to have abundant sea life, we need to create and maintain more supporting habitat.
