Offshore staff
WASHINGTON, D.C. –The US Interior Department has moved closer to allowing seismic testing offshore in the Atlantic from Delaware Bay to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Interior Department said, however, that the environmental statement does not authorize any geological and geophysical testing activities, "but rather it establishes a framework for additionalmandatory environmental reviews for site-specific actions."
Tommy Beaudreau, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said that the Interior Department is committed to "balancing the need for understanding offshore energy resources with the protection of the human and marine environment using thebest available science as the basis of this environmental review."
The bureau hasproposed several protective measures, including the use of visual observers to avoid ships striking marine mammals, and barring the blasts along the main migratory route for the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, the rarest large whale species.
2/28/14
