# REHAB Old Oil Rigs into Artificial Reefs instead of Blowing them up



## wyld3man (Oct 4, 2011)

Not sure if this is old news and is still going on but it seems kind of crazy:001_huh:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/837/...-artificial-reefs-instead-of-blowing-them-up/

http://www.local15tv.com/news/local...-Thousands-of-Red/xj8T4zPamkOGc8fuT40W_Q.cspx


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## Redtracker (Dec 28, 2011)

Wonder what Crabtree thinks about this?


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## coolbluestreak (Jun 27, 2011)

It is old news but,

Blowing the legs off will make them fall over and turn into a reef.
It didn't say that they pick up the pieces did it?

Sucks that it kills so many fish, nice to see them getting called out on it though.


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## flappininthebreeze (Jul 13, 2009)

*Demolitions*

Where is PETA when you need them. They try to stop fishing because hooks hurt. Well, apparently so do high explosive charges.


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## d-a (Mar 13, 2010)

coolbluestreak said:


> It is old news but,
> 
> Blowing the legs off will make them fall over and turn into a reef.
> It didn't say that they pick up the pieces did it?
> ...



The ones that ive seen removed are completely gone, capped below the surface and nothing there.

d-a


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## Howitzer (Nov 4, 2011)

I worked on jobs like that for 8 years as a oil field diver. There's always fish lost. Company's have what we call a "Turtle Lady" that observes for Dolphins, large surface schools of fish and sea turtles. They make you wait till wildlife passes before you can blow the charges. All the the fish that live on the rig are the ones that meet that fate. 
The Turtle lady is always a marine biologist usually from the University of Texas A&M. I cant think of any way to get the fish to leave the rig before it goes. The reason they are removed is due to Fed and State laws. Anything from surface to a depth of 400ft by law needs to bee removed. 
You remove top package of rig and they put charges down each leg 15 to 20 ft below mud-line, blow,then rig crane up and yank. These rigs are some of the most amazing sights you will ever see for fish habbitat. They should leave them in place or (like with some) take to a safe location to be reef'ed. The legs and jackets of the rigs with over 4,000 of them in American part of the Gulf is a major reason the fishing is good in the Gulf. IT be better for all if they left them in place or moved and reef'ed them.


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## ashcreek (Oct 4, 2007)

Wish there was a way to quit my job and spend 59hrs aweeks trying to fix issues like this .... i know we have bigger fish to fry but these issues are still very important...


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## joseph_zlnsk (Jan 24, 2012)

The rigs do not get destroyed like you think. I still work as a diver, they blow the legs below the mud line, after the legs are blown the rig is still exactly where it was, it doesn't fall over or is destroyed. We then rig it up and usually move it several miles to a reef site where we drop it on its side. It makes a great artificial reef.


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## Lyin Too (Aug 31, 2009)

How many of these have been made into reefs? How many have been removed and scapped?


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## joseph_zlnsk (Jan 24, 2012)

I've been on several dozen of these jobs Mabey out of 40 rigs only 2 were scrapped. The rest were reefed. Now they usually scrap the top package(part that sticks above the water. We don't usually blow them too often either most of the time we set diamond saws or use sand cutters


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## fishnhuntguy (Feb 8, 2012)

*Removed by law*

The lease the oil company signs requires the oil company to remove the rig 5 years after it goes out of production. Remove means remove. They cannot make it into a reef unless the the Govt. approves of it. If they want to mak reefs the federal govt. needs to change the lease agreements by law. Crabtree don't care about fish, us, or anything else.


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## joseph_zlnsk (Jan 24, 2012)

Right, but most of those rigs started their leases in the 60s and early 70s. We were on a saturation job, 500ft of water. The rig was tipped over and broken from Katrina, we just chopped the rig up into pieces and stacked up the pieces in a pile on the bottom less than 100ft away from where the rig was


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## capt mike (Oct 3, 2007)

*You need to talk in person to our Congressmen!*

Joesph Zinsk
You need to call the Gulf States Congressmen's offices and talk to them. You have special insight into what our crooked government is doing. Yes we need more reefs but evidently there's a snake in this wood pile! John Q PUBLIC is out of touch IF WHAT YOU SAY IS CORRECT!!


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## joseph_zlnsk (Jan 24, 2012)

All the rigs we reef are permitted. They has to be an engineered approved blue print, a plan ect before we do anything. Approved by the government. Now I will say there is a certain amount of money put to the side for removing the rig, the oil companies like to push us to get them done so they can keep the left over money


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## d-a (Mar 13, 2010)

Not as many as there should be used for reefs, either rigs to reefs or reef in place. 

386 out of 2000 reefs have been left for habitat since 1973

http://www.bsee.gov/Exploration-and-Production/Decomissioning/Idle-Iron-Statistics.aspx

d-a


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## BILL MONEY (Jan 28, 2009)

It falls under the same laws as mining... they have to return the area to EXACTLY the same way it was when the platform was set. They have to drag nets on the bottum to recover anything that may have been lost over the side before Joseph and his crew get there to cut the legs... When the laws were put into place they are following they had no idea how big of a ecological boost they would be for the gulf waters.. you need to hammer your federal law makers in your state to go to DC and make the BSEE change the law that is in place. it will cost the final lease holder of the platform some coin but i think that they could work in a tax break for the estimated loss of scrap salvage. These things have been removed and reused many times in their life cycle on the top side. The Legs can be pulled and reused as well but i think are better to be left in place.


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