Wildlife agency predicted low risk from oil spills
NEW ORLEANS — Less than three years before the Gulf oil spill erupted, federal regulators concluded several offshore drilling projects posed a low risk to endangered wildlife — a determination that contrasts sharply with recent scenes of birds struggling to survive the slick.
A September 2007 memo from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said large oil spills from the proposed Gulf drilling projects under review were "low-probability events" that weren't likely to affect brown pelicans, sea turtles and other animals with Gulf Coast habitats.
The memo suggests that the former Mineral Management Service wasn't the only federal agency that failed to identify and attempt to minimize the risks of deepwater drilling.
The memo, first reported by The New York Times, concluded that the chance of oil from an offshore spill of at least 1,000 barrels reaching endangered species or their habitats was no greater than 26 percent.
The agency didn't challenge the MMS's assessment of potential danger from 11 Gulf oil and gas lease sales, which included the well that the Deepwater Horizon rig was drilling when an April 20 blowout killed 11 workers and started leaking millions of gallons of oil.
MMS was renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement last month amid criticism that the agency was lax in its oversight of the companies it regulates.
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