Georges Bank: Fish or Fuel?

Oil companies win the battle to drill off Massachussetts

Fishermen have always called it Georges Bank. The origin of its name is obscure, possibly tracing to one of the British kings of colonial times. But its status is clear: it is one of the richest fishing grounds in the world. Located in a West Virginia-sized patch of the Atlantic continental shelf, it harbors a cornucopia of yellowtail, cod and haddock, lobsters and scallops, swordfish and squid--some 200 species in all. Supporting a $1 billion a year fishing industry, it provides 17% of America's saltwater catch, 14% of the world's.

Georges Bank may have another natural resource: oil. That has put it at the center of a bitter legal campaign between the U.S. Department of the Interior, which wants to lease drilling rights to private oil companies, and an alliance of fishermen, environmentalists, and the Attorney General of Massachusetts, who fear an oil spill that could devastate the area. Now the pro-oil forces have swept away a major legal roadblock. Barring a successful new attack by the fishing group, the leases will be auctioned off Dec. 18 at a hotel in Providence, R.I.

For all the courtroom arguments in favor of drilling, no one knows how much oil can really be tapped from the shoals of Georges Bank. But even oil industry experts admit that the yield from the tracts to be auctioned will probably be far less than from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay or the Gulf of Mexico. Best guess: 123 million Barrels over the 20-year lease period. Brought up in a single haul, that would provide the U.S. with only about one week's supply of oil. If not oil, then natural gas could be drawn from Georges Bank. But the estimated yield of 870 billion cu. ft. over 20 years is paltry compared with the 19.3 trillion cu. ft. now used annually in the U.S. The retort by oil advocates, of course, is that in an energy crisis any possible sources should be explored.

Yet the potential havoc of an oil spill on Georges Bank is considerably greater than at other drilling sites. Attorney Douglas Foy of the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston predicted in court that at least one major spill would occur over 20 years. Worse yet, warned Foy, would be the almost continuous discharges from day-to-day operations. Adds Biologist Howard Sanders of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: "There is a very real danger to Georges Bank fish from low-level chronic pollution."

Not every scientist agrees. Says John Ryther, another Woods Hole biologist: "I don't believe drilling will cause mass mortalities of fish." The Government maintains that the leases cover no spawning grounds on Georges Bank, and that the prevailing currents could easily sweep an oil slick to sea. Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus notes that of 292 million bbl. of oil produced last year from off-shore U.S. wells, only two spills exceeded 50 bbl., the largest losing only 135 bbl. Besides, the oil revenues that could be realized even from a small reserve at Georges Bank are hard to turn down. Two decades of fishing might be worth $3.3 billion. Two decades of oil should earn about $7 billion at current prices. President Carter, whose standing among environmentalists dropped last month when he signed legislation to complete Tennessee's Tellico Dam, has quietly come out in favor of the drilling.

But drilling obviously poses a considerable risk to a rare and important ecosystem with a resource that, unlike oil, is renewable. Twelve thousand years ago, Georges Bank was dry land at the end of a glacier. It is still as shallow as nine feet in parts, and 300 feet at its deepest; one fisherman's tale has it that a ship's crew was able to play baseball on a shoal after a storm. The Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current converge at the site and circulate a hearty brew of nutrients on which plankton thrive and proliferate. Fish in turn feed on the plankton and spawn seasonally in the shoals, coming from as far north as the Arctic, as far south as the Carolina coast.

For the fishermen, whose families have worked these waters for 350 years, all this makes Georges Bank far too precious a place to sink an oil well. Another appeal has been filed to stop the auction, though its chances seem slim. If the leases are sold, the fishermen will have a grace period of from six months to a year while the oil companies make preparations to drill. That means time for a new and different case on different grounds. But the fishermen's hope will be the same: to keep their livelihood alive and well.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.