In the next few days, Rep. Don Young (R-AK), will introduce "The Conservation and Reinvestment Act of 1998", under the guise of providing funds to mitigate the adverse impacts of offshore drilling. This "OCS Impact Aid" legislation proposes to reward coastal states, counties, boroughs, and parishes willing to relax their long-standing opposition to expanded Outer Continental Shelf production and leasing. House co-sponsors include Reps. Billy Tauzin (R-LA), Richard Baker (R-LA), John Dingell (D-MI) and Chris John (D-LA). Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Frank Murkowski (R-AK) are working on a similar bill in the Senate. The sponsors hope to schedule hearings during the remainder of the current legislative session, and return next year to aggressively push the bill in conjunction with an oil industry public relations campaign.

The allocation formula in the Young bill ties 50% of a state's funding to proximity to offshore oil and gas production. The closer a state allows offshore production, the more money they will get. For Florida, North Carolina, and Alaska, this formula would provide a big incentive to accept new production on offshore tracts which were inappropriately leased during the pro-development tenure of former Interior Secretaries Watt and Hodel. The bill would also provide direct payments to local governments of 50% of a state's share, based on proximity to leases. In many coastal states, where local concerns have provided the bipartisan political cornerstone for a seventeen-year congressional moratorium on new offshore leasing, proximity-based fiscal incentives to communities are designed to undermine local opposition.

Revenues to be distributed under this legislation include a portion of the bonus bids (the amount paid by an oil company for a new lease), providing yet another incentive for states to oppose leasing moratoria. Because the legislation would require that half of a state's allocation be paid directly to eligible local governments, the bill creates substantial pressure on local governments to support leasing as well as production. With no requirement that all or even most of the money actually be used to ameliorate the impacts of offshore drilling, the funds could be spent on boondoggle construction and infrastructure projects that could do extensive environmental damage.

With the oil industry's hidden agenda so obviously implicit in the Young bill, and proximity-based OCS incentives posing such a clear threat to virtually every coastal state, you should make sure that your own congressional representatives do not unwittingly become co-sponsors of this bill. You should also be certain that your state and local officials clearly understand that this legislation is designed to undermine the congressional moratorium on offshore leasing. Don't let Congress sell out your coast !

CONTACT: Richard Charter, Co-Chair National OCS Coalition Box 583, Bodega Bay, CA 94923 (707)875-2345 waterway@monitor.net

My family spent the first week of August at the beach in Dewey Beach. The first day on the sand, we noticed that rip currents would suddenly appear, without warning, and drag people down the coast and eventually, if they didn't escape it, out to sea. The surf was large, running 6-9 feet, due to a storm to the North. My wife, Lisa, a veteran life guard, was dragged down the beach on the second day. She managed to escape but was thoroughly exhausted by the struggle. When we reported this to the lifeguards, they said, "Yes, the rip currents were dangerous but unpredictable." The lifeguards rescued more people in the one week we were at the beach than they did all last summer.

On the third day, the waves calmed down a bit and my daughter, Emily, emboldened by a confidence building kayak trip with Mike D'Amico, waded out and joined me at the breaker line. Suddenly, a set of very large waves began to break at very short intervals (15 seconds) and a strong rip current appeared. Emily cried for help and she grabbed my out stretched hand. Then she let go to turn to face a large breaker about to hit us. She dived under but I was hit hard and thrown into shore.

By the time I got up, she was already 50 feet down the beach, trapped in a cycle of diving under breakers 6-9 feet in height which hit the beach one right after another. Lisa ran for the lifeguard and I ran down the beach to reach my daughter. As I waded out into the surf, another large wave knocked me down. I got up frantic to reach her. The lifeguard arrived. By this time, Emily had moved herself enough to ride a wave in. She was so exhausted she could barely walk.

The next day, the local weekly newspaper ran a long article which quoted an ocean expert who said the beach replenishment project had dramatically changed the coastal currents, particularly those right on the beach, creating intermittent rip currents and strange wave patterns as a result. So there it was.

Senators Sarbane's and Mikulski's pet tax wasting project had almost killed my daughter. I left vacation with a renewed determination to end this stupid, wasteful, destructive and dangerous project.

Recently the issue has heated up as the Clinton Administration and other critics question the obligation the nation has to protect homes and businesses on coastlines, particularly since erosion is becoming a greater problem due to sea level rise and still more people continue to build closer to the ocean. The Senate last month changed the funding formula from 65% federal to a 50/50 share with local communities. But this same year Maryland added a new twist to the old controversy, and parlayed it into 100% federally funding--ostensibly to safeguard our public lands.

Maryland's Assateague Island National Seashore, administered by the National Park Service, lies at the north end of a barrier island just downdrift of Ocean City. The Seashore's chronic erosion problems derive from the effects of dredging the navigation channel (used largely by private pleasure craft) and construction of a jetty for Ocean City that traps sand moving south.

Several storms in January and February 1998 flooded and severely eroded the northern end of the Seashore, only a couple of months before public comments were due on the Corps' final comprehensive Ocean City Water Resources Feasibility Study calling for short and longterm engineering solutions. Fears that the island was in imminent danger of breach, "exposing both the National Seashore and the back bay areas to additional environmental and economic damages," prompted the National Park Service to obtain $2.5 million through Congressional action for an "Emergency Response Action" that in effect accelerated work on the short-term restoration plan described in the Study.

This Emergency Response, originally slated to begin July 15, includes dredging up to 320,000 cubic yards of sand from the Great Gull Bank shoal located in federal waters, placing it on the Island to create a 100-footwide, 8400 foot long berm with an elevation of 8 feet. Work was scheduled to begin July 15. But there was a very big catch.

Last year this area of the beach served as breeding ground for 60 pairs of of endangered piping plovers, 60% of the southern recovery unit, and the shorebirds are back again this year. Piping plovers are highly sensitive to disturbance by vehicles and human activity yet the proposed "emergency" beach project was set to occur in and near their prime nesting and foraging sites. During the project, the beaches will be lit by floodlights at night and heavy construction equipment will run 24 hours a day during the entire period.

The Corps estimates that work will, take three weeks to complete, at minimum. In its Biological Opinion, the US Fish & Wildlife Service recommended, as a reasonable and prudent measure, that construction not start until September 1 or after the plovers leave the area. As of this writing, work is set to begin August 17.

The Sierra Club Maryland Chapter and Atlantic Coast Ecoregion have submitted written comments questioning the purpose and need of the project. Additional concerns raised include whether this qualifies as a genuine emergency that would justify an abbreviated review process; what are the likely impacts to fish and wildlife and their habitat, especially threatened and endangered species such as piping plover and sea turtles, and to finfish species that use the Shoal during summer months; regional economic impacts from harm to commercial and recreational fishing grounds; indirect and cumulative impacts to the larger aquatic ecosystem of the Coastal Bays; and the externalized cost of $2.5 million passed along to federal taxpayers to compensate for sand starvation of Assateague Island caused by the Ocean City Jetty, as well as the sheer futility and perpetual motion of trying to restore Assateague Island without removing the Jetty.

Next time you visit the Seashore take note of the new houses and other structures that continue to materialize on the mainland shore behind Assateague and you will better understand the real scope and purpose of this project.

For more information: Vivian Newman, Maryland Chapter Coastal Chair, 410-442-5639, email vivian.newman@sierraclub.org and Mike D'Amico, Director of Special Projects, Sierra Club Atlantic Coast Ecoregion 302-644-0627 (W) / 302-644-9172(F), email: mike.damico@sierraclub.org

The most significant for Maryland was the defeat of the Pallone-Gilchrest amendment to Department of Commerce appropriations that would have fully funded the Coastal Runoff Program, a key piece of the the President's Clean Water Action Plan and the only enforceable program to help states control polluted runoff (including agricultural runoff) into coastal waters.

To retain a Balanced Budget, this money would have been transferred from NOAA's weather satellite program, and this framed the debate as clean water versus hurricane forecasting. Only Reps. Ehrlich and Bartlett were swayed by this to oppose Pallone-Gilchrest. There may still be hope through the Conference Committee. By contrast, all legislators hopped on the bandwagon to get funds for research and monitoring of Harmful Algal Blooms, including Pfiesteria.

Congressman Gilchrest's amendment to strike the bad Coastal Barriers rider from Department of Interior's budget unfortunately had to be withdrawn due to lack of support. The rider deletes several Florida barrier island properties from the Coastal Barriers Resources System, thus awarding developers federal subsidies including National Flood Insurance. Rep. Gilchrest had to settle for entering into the record his strong statement opposing this action and commitment to preserving CBRS from further raids.

Also defeated 141-283 was a bizarre amendment offered by Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-AL) that would have in effect extended state waters to nine miles for Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi in order to avoid federal regulation of fisheries under the Sustainable Fisheries Act and the requirement for shrimpers to use turtle-excluder devices. This could have also led to the state of Louisiana extending claim on royalties for offshore oil. A motion to strike was offered by Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) and adopted by voice vote to maintain the current 3-mile limit for state jurisdiction for the three adjoining Gulf states. This unanimous action occurred after Rep. Callahan said he "accepted defeat with humility." The lone Maryland vote against the Gilchrest motion came from Roscoe Bartlett.