Gas Rigs to Invade Padre Island National Seashore

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas, November 22, 2002 (ENS) - The National Park Service has approved the drilling of two new onshore gas wells within Padre Island National Seashore on the Texas Gulf Coast. The decision, made last week without official announcements, has angered conservation groups who say the wells will threaten popular vacation beaches and nesting areas of the endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle, the rarest of all sea turtles.

While more than 60 oil and natural gas wells have been drilled in the Seashore over the past half century, just two are now active, so the decision by the National Park Service (NPS) will double the amount of energy industry activity at the site. The NPS permit will allow heavy trucks to pass up to 20 times a day over the fragile beach that forms the only U.S. nesting site for the Kemp's ridley, and provides a haven for at least 10 other endangered species.

Sand dunes at Padre Island National Seashore. (Photo courtesy NPS)

Interior Department spokesperson Eric Ruff said the two new wells are "nothing new," noting that energy exploration has occurred at Padre Island since its formation. When Congress established the 67 mile long Padre Island National Seashore in 1962, it specified that private individuals and the state of Texas would retain their existing mineral rights to the site, and could use any "reasonably necessary" methods to remove oil and natural gas deposits.

But the sole access for oil and gas rigs and drilling equipment along most of the island is the park's 80 mile long Gulf Coast beach - which is also a sea turtle nesting ground.

A variety of wildflowers, like this beach morning glory, help stabilize the dunes at Padre Island National Seashore. (Photo by Phil Slattery, courtesy NPS)

Over the past year, the Bush administration has issued a variety of directives calling on federal agencies to speed up oil, natural gas and coal production on public lands and to review any regulations, including endangered species protections, which may slow drilling.

Padre Island National Seashore has just two existing active natural gas wells. One of those wells, owned by BNP Petroleum Corporation of Corpus Christi, Texas, was drilled earlier this year and resulted in five months of heavy truck traffic along 15 miles of Gulf Coast beach.

BNP is also the company that will drill the two newly approved wells as part of a larger plan. In all, up to 18 wells could be drilled within Padre Island under BNP's plan, creating additional traffic on the Gulf Coast beach that could crush or kill sea turtles and their eggs. The presence of gas wells also creates risks for polluting the waters of the national seashore, where sea turtles and other marine species swim and feed.

The Kemp's ridley sea turtle, the most endangered sea turtle in the world, nests at just two North American sites - including Padre Island. (Photo courtesy NPS)

While the NPS permit encourages BNP to conduct most of its drilling and truck activity outside the turtles' nesting season in spring and early summer, the permit does not forbid activity at any time. Trucks will be permitted to travel in slow moving, escorted conveys throughout the height of the turtle nesting season - which is also the height of the tourist season.

The NPS requires energy companies to take special precautions at Padre Island, like laying down protective liners before constructing drill pads to help cushion the ground beneath drilling equipment. (Photo by Arlene Wimer, courtey NPS)

"Drilling at Padre Island is not about decreasing our nation's dependency on foreign sources of energy," Rasmussen said. "Unlike oil, natural gas is something of which we have adequate supply to meet our demand, so this project is designed only to enrich energy executives at the expense of seashore visitors and endangered marine life."