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Page 5A • Thursday, February 27, 2003
Whale behaviors unaffected by oil drilling
The Sakhalin oil fields, located
in Russia's Sea of Okhotsk, contains
an estimated 2.3 billion barrels of oil
and 17 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Western Pacific gray whales
- The world's most
endangered whales
- Numbered at
less than 100
worldwide
Travis Swenson •THE BATTALION
Source: The Los Angeles times
By Robert Stackhouse
THE BATTALION
A Texas A&M Galveston study
provides evidence that undersea oil
and gas exploration has not seriously
altered western gray whales 4 living
and feeding behaviors in the waters
around Northern Russia’s Sakhalin
Island, though the point is still debat
ed by conservationists.
Dr. Bemd Wursig, a professor of
marine biology at Texas A&M at
Galveston, has studied a population
of western gray whales over five
years, and concluded that oil and gas
drilling does not affect the highly
endangered species.
“The main purpose was to find the
number and habitat usage of western
gray whales,” Wursig said.
With a limited population of sur
viving whales, people in the oil and
gas industry and environmental
groups are concerned about the sur
vival of western gray whales.
These whales are a very endan
gered species, with only around one
hundred left in the world. Disturbing
this fragile environment is a concern,
but day-to-day behavioral patterns of
the whales are negligibly affected by
oil and gas operations, Wursig said.
“(The whales) are affected to a
degree, but they continue to use that
habitat (where oil and gas exploration
is ongoing,,” he said.
The data supporting his contention
- the idea that drilling operations and
the world’s most endangered whale
species can peacefully co-exist - was
collected using surveying instruments
and global positioning systems.
Such information can provide
insight into the behavioral patterns of
whales of both a survival and social
nature. The surveying techniques
Wursig and his group used found spe
cific information on whales’ depth,
distance from shore, and spacing
from each other, he said.
By modeling the whales 4 posi
tions in three dimensions, researchers
can determine if feeding habits are
being disrupted by oil operations.
A photographic record of whales
can help determine their lifespan,
since each whale has its own unique
markings, which can be used to iden
tify them over time.
“We go out on a Zodiac inflatable
boat to photo-identify each whale. A
photo record can say something about
longevity,” Wursig said.
Whales may also be tracked
through their DNA. Samples are
taken using a harpoon resembling a
crossbow, which are then biopsied
and recorded.
But Richard Charter, a marine
conservation advocate with the
Oceans Program of the
Environmental Defense Organization
said oil operations are hazardous to
whale populations, despite the fact
that their feeding and behavioral pat
terns have not changed.
“There has been an ongoing con
troversy about the effects of seismic
survey activities on whale popula
tions,” he said.
The instruments used to conduct
seafloor oil deposit surveys are
believed by some to be harmful to
whales, also.
Oil exploration uses high frequen
cy sound waves directed at the ocean
floor to determine the size of oil and
gas deposits under the ocean. Seismic
impulses such as these have been
linked to whales found beached near
oil exploration sites, Charter said.
According to an article by the Los
Angeles Times, seismic research con
ducted by the National Science
Foundation is being held responsible
for the deaths of two beached whales.
Wursig said his reasearch has yet
to address the effects of seismic sur
vey techniques on whales.
Wursig’s research has been funded
in large part by the oil industry.
“The major ones have been Exxon
and S.E.I.C,” Wursig said.
Though Dr. Wursig’s research
shows that the day-to-day operations
of offshore platforms are not altering
the behavior of the western gray
whales, it remains to be seen whether
the seismic activity portion of oil
exploration is harmful to the whales.
NASA e-mails reveal pre-disaster saftey uncertainties
By Ted Bridis
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — One day before the
Columbia disaster, senior NASA engineers wor
ried the shuttle’s left wing might burn off and
cause the deaths of the crew, describing a scenario
much like the one investigators believe happened.
They never sent their warnings to NASA’s
brass, according to dozens of pages of e-mails
NASA released Wednesday.
“Why are we talking about this on the day
before landing and not the day after launch?”
wrote William C. Anderson, an employee for the
United Space Alliance LEG, a NASA contractor,
Jess than 24 hours before the shuttle broke apart.
■Two days earlier, one frustrated engineer
asked, “Any more activity today on the tile dam
age or are people just relegated to crossing their
fingers and hoping for the best?”
After intense debate — occurring by phone
and e-mails — the engineers, supervisors and the
head of the space agency’s Langley research
facility in Hampton, Va., decided
against taking the matter , to top
NASA managers.
Jeffrey V. Kling, a flight con
troller at Johnson Space Center’s
mission control, foresaw with
haunting accuracy what might
happen to Columbia during its
fiery descent if superheated air
were allowed to penetrate the
wheel compartment.
Kling wrote just 23 hours
before the disaster that his engi
neering team’s recommendation
in such an event “is going to be
to set up for a bailout (assuming
the wing doesn’t burn off before
we can get the crew out).” Kling the following
day was among the first in mission control to
report a sudden, unexplained loss of data from
the shuttle’s sensors in the left wing.
The e-mails describe a far broader discussion
about the risks to Columbia than
the concerns first raised three days
earlier by Robert Daugherty, a
NASA senior research engineer at
Langley. He was concerned most
about the safety of the shuttle land
ing with flat tires or wheels dam
aged from extreme heat.
Daugherty was responding to
questions on Jan. 27 from Carlisle
Campbell, a NASA engineer at
Johnson Space Center, about how
re-entry heat could damage the
shuttle’s tires. One day into the
debate, Daugherty expressed frus
tration to Campbell about the
apparent lack of interest with his remark about
keeping fingers crossed.
Among the messages was one from
Daugherty’s boss at Langley, Mark J. Shuart, to
another Langley supervisor, Doug Dwoyer,
describing Daugherty as “the kind of conserva
tive, thorough engineer that NASA needs.”
One e-mail, from R.K. “Kevin” McCluney, a
shuttle mechanical engineer at Johnson Space
Center, described the risks that could lead to
“LOCV” — NASA shorthand for the loss of the
crew and vehicle. But McCluney ultimately rec
ommended to do nothing unless there was a
“wholesale loss of data” from sensors in the left
wing, in which case controllers would need to
decide between a risky landing or dangerous
bailout attempt.
“Beats me what the breakpoint would be
between the two decisions,” McCluney wrote.
Investigators have reported such a wholesale
loss of sensor readings in Columbia’s left wing,
but it occurred too late to do anything — after
the shuttle was already racing through Earth’s
upper atmosphere and moments before its ulti
mate demise
a
Why are we talk
ing about this on the
day before landing
and not the day after
launch?
— William C. Anderson
NASA contractor
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Polkinghome made a 25-year career as a
theoretical particle physicist before he decided
in midlife to enter the seminary and become
an Anglican priest. Polkinghome has written
that he respects both science and religion and
believes that sciences search for
understanding ultimately leads to God.
presented by
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Dr, Alan Guth:
Guth, a National Academy of Science
member and physics professor at MIT, is
known as the father of the "inflationary
universe" theory, which holds that a repulsive
force embedded in the universe caused the
inconceivably rapid early expansion of the
Big Bang.