Rigs-to-Reefs

My post-doctoral project titled "Sea Stories: Constructing Nature in the Rigs-to-Reefs Debate" is an examination of the modern history of the Rigs-to-Reefs program in which decommissioned oil and gas offshore platform jackets are converted into artificial reefs. In this project, I examine the scientific and political controversies surrounding Rigs-to-Reefs since the mid-1970s in the Gulf of Mexico, California Bight and North Sea. By analyzing the historical development of artificial coral reef research in conjunction with political and business discussions about offshore disposal of oil structures, the project hopes to shed light on why policies have developed differently in the three areas. I am particularly interested in how a combination of science, politics, economics, and culture work together to define what is “natural.”

The project was funded by the Research Council of Norway's Miljø 2015 program.

Check out the T-Post magazine t-shirt with an article written by a student at Umeå University inspired by my research. It's not often that scholarly work gets made into a t-shirt!

Publications

"Sinking prospect: oil rigs and Greenpeace in the North Sea"

Solutions Journal 4 (Sept 2013): [online]

This article argues that environmental discourses develop on an international stage at a particular moment in time and can create associations between issues that are not directly related. When Greenpeace, by occupying the Brent Spar, turned all eyes on the issue of dumping oil installations at sea, political opinion turned against any action that might be construed as dumping. Although reef creation was not the same thing as disposal, environmentalists and OSPAR representatives from several nations believed that oil companies would misuse artificial reefs to dump their waste while claiming their actions were environmentally sound. The Norwegian government, although not in agreement with these positions, decided that the rig conversion battle was one they did not want to fight. The legacy of these decisions lives on: as of 2013, no obsolete offshore oil installation structures have been converted into artificial reefs in the North Sea.

"Environmentalists on both sides: Enactments in the California rigs-to-reefs debate"

In New Natures: Joining Environmental History with Science and Technology Studies, ed. Dolly Jørgensen, Finn Arne Jørgensen & Sara Pritchard (Pittsburgh: Univ of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), 51-68. Buy the book.

Classic environmental histories of the environmentalist movement tell stories of pro-environmentalists fighting against anti-environmentalist interests who typically opt for economic gain over environmental preservation. However, in the debate in California over whether or not former offshore oil installations should be converted into artificial reefs, both sides claimed to be doing what was best for nature. How can environmental history explain a case like this where both sides claim to be pro-environmental? This paper uses the STS concept of enactment to understand how both sides can be genuinely pro-environmental while advocating exactly the opposite approach. Enactment of nature per the work of John Law and Annemarie Mol, involves multiplicity, i.e. there are different practices that make manifest different versions of nature and propose courses of action for dealing with it. This is not to say that nature does not exist, but we only know it through the versions of nature we produce. In the case of rigs-to-reefs, two versions of nature are enacted by the actors: one which is returned to a pre-oil development condition and the other which includes the manmade structures. I argue that because the enactments in the California rigs-to-reefs issue called for opposite actions, a full-blown environmental controversy emerged. Alliances were built around these common enactments of nature and strong actor-networks coalesced. Yet neither group was able to destabilize the other’s enactment, and therefore the controversy lived on even after a legislative defeat of the pro-rigs-to-reefs group in 2001 and subsequent legislative success in 2010.

"Mixing oil and water: Naturalizing offshore oil rigs in Gulf Coast aquariums"

Journal of American Studies 46 (2012): 461–480. Available online.

This article analyzes aquarium displays depicting the ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico to see the ways in which offshore oil structures have been naturalized. It focuses on aquariums in Texas and Louisiana that use oil structures as part of their public displays of the ocean environment, as well as educational material about the offshore ecosystems. The article argues that much of the public presentation of the Gulf ecosystem is tied up with the development of Rigs-to-Reefs programs, which allow the conversion of offshore oil structures into artificial reefs after they are decommissioned from active use. Louisiana began the first state Rigs-to-Reefs program in 1986, shortly before the first modern aquariums installed Gulf of Mexico tanks highlighting the contribution of the oil industry to the Gulf’s ecosystem. This article argues that the aquarium displays are products of the specific social and political context of the Rigs-to-Reefs program, which encouraged the creation of hybrid schemes for the representation of marine life in the region that mixed oil and water.

"Rigs-to-reefs is more than rigs and reefs"

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10 (2012): 178–179. Available online.

This peer-reviewed letter makes a case for integrating policy history into scientific recommendations for rigs-to-reefs programs by examining the failed attempt to make the Odin platform into Norway's first rig-to-reef project.

“OSPAR's exclusion of rigs-to-reefs in the North Sea”

Ocean and Coastal Management 58 (2012): 57-61. Available online at journal website. Accepted, uncorrected version

This article focuses on how the debate over the deepwater disposal of offshore oil and gas installations has been central to shaping North Sea artificial reef policy. Through a close empirical historical study, this article reconstructs how Greenpeace’s protest of the deepwater disposal of the Brent Spar spurred the exclusion of rigs-to-reefs (the conversion of obsolete offshore oil and gas structures into artificial reefs) as a viable decommissioning option by the primary international treaty organization with jurisdiction over North Sea waters, the Oslo-Paris Commission (OSPAR). During OSPAR’s artificial reef guideline development, several OSPAR contracting parties implied that there is a conspiracy among oil companies to use rigs-to-reefs as a cover for evading the deepwater disposal rules, although they never presented evidence to back up these claims. In the face of pressure to “close the loophole” for deepwater disposal and in spite of scientific objection, OSPAR’s final guidelines excluded all non-virgin materials as acceptable reef construction materials, essentially banning rigs-to-reefs. Because a significant number of steel offshore installations will be decommissioned in North Sea waters in the decade and the most up-to-date science has concluded that manmade deepwater reefs may be beneficial to some species including threatened coldwater coral, this article suggests that OSPAR revise its guidelines. Rigs-to-reefs should be not categorically excluded; a case-by-case determination of the suitability of a structure for reuse as an artificial reef would be most appropriate.

“An oasis in a watery desert? Discourses on an industrial ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico Rigs-to-Reefs program”

History and Technology 25 (December 2009): 343-364. Download final article text. Article on journal webpage

This article explores how in the years after 1980 a spectrum of historical actors came to see petroleum platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as a necessary part of the Gulf ecosystem and how such views affected platform removal policies. Through a discourse analysis of the Rigs-to-Reefs program, in which old offshore petroleum facilities were converted into artificial reefs, this article examines how actors presented to the public their notions of the relationship of the Gulf ecosystem with technological offshore structures. Through this case we see how ideas of technology and nature were mutually constructed via discourses and what affect that had on policies.

Forthcoming Publications

"Mixing oil and water: Naturalizing offshore oil platforms in American aquariums" In: Oil Culture, ed. R. Barrett and D. Worden (University of Minnesota Press, expected publication in 2014). This is a modified version of the Journal of American Studies article: it adds a California aquarium to the discussion and deletes the educational material.

Reefs or rubbish? A comparative history of the Rigs-to-Reefs concept. Book manuscript under preparation.

Conference/Seminar Papers

"Naturalizing offshore oil structures in aquarium exhibits," Umeå Studies in Science, Technology & Environment Seminar Series, 29 March 2011. See the flyer.

“A controversial platform: The politics of fishermen and environmentalists in the Rigs-to-Reefs debate,” World Congress of Environmental History, 2009.

“An oasis in a watery desert: Maintaining an industrial ecology in the Gulf of Mexico with the Rigs-to-Reefs program,” American Society for Environmental History, 2009.

“Contesting conversion: The dynamics of Rigs-to-Reefs discussions,” Society for the History of Technology, 2008.

Public Project Dissemination

"Rigger bør bli rev" [Rigs should become reefs], DagensNæringsliv, 23 November 2009.

“En dårlig plan eller dårlig timing? Hvorfor det norske Rigs-to-Reefs programmet havarerte” [A bad plan or bad timing? Why the Norwegian Rigs-to-Reefs program failed], Forum for historie, kultur og samfunn, University of Stavanger, 18 March 2009.

Related publications

Review of Brian Frehner, Finding Oil: The Nature of Petroleum Geology, 1859-1920, in Technology and Culture 54 (2013): 201-202. Online