just goes to show you, how ignorant our government is!! they kill thousands and its ok? they wont replenish because now their home is gone too! u catch 1 over the limit, or undersized and the same government wants to crucify you!! i guess the government can do whatever it wants to do, whenever and wherever it wants to do it!! can u imagine what would happen to you if they caught you doing that! someone needs to be held accountable for this and go straight to federal prison in general population!! SOME SAD!!!

My uncle works offshore for a company out of Houma that does this. They remove these abandoned wells in the gulf. Nothing criminal about this, that's just the business it is. He's been doing this for awhile and is paid well. He says you can see a sea of red once they implode. Before u go criticizing, what would u have them do with these abandoned wells out in the gulf.

do like they did with the freeport sulphur platform at grand isle! cut it below the waterline and leave the rest beneath the water for an artificial reef for the fish and the rest of the seastuff!

is your uncle and the rest, allowed to keep any of the fish legally? dont see why not, better than wasting them??

There is a federal law requiring oil companies to return the ocean floor to it's natural state, once operations are complete. That's the reason platforms are completely removed. But I'm sure they can find a better way of doing this though. With out the use of explosives.

i'm sure u are right, but they didnt do that with the freeport sulphur platform off grand isle! they cut it down i think maybe 40 feet below the waterline and left the rest for an artificial reef! now thats the way to do it, without killing thousands of fish and marine life and their homes!! who knows what damage is really being done to marine life using explosives and taking away artificial reefs that has been there for what 30-40-50 years or longer?

This wrong!!!!! Please send this video to all your friends and especially ensure you include all your e-mail addresses in your contacts to let them know u mean business. I know in central Louisiana I contacted, Senator Mary Landrieu, Senator Rodney Aleaxander, Senator David Vider and Governor Bobby Jindal. If you need what to write copy and paste the following, but do get the word out:

The following link was posted on Louisiana Sportsman's website and broadcast on a news show, my comments and contact information are below. Please respond as soon as possible.

http://www.local15tv.com/news/local/story/Explosive-Fed-Mandate-Killing-Thousands-of-Red/xj8T4zPamkOGc8fuT40W_Q.cspx

URGENT-Oil Rig Explosions by Government needs to be stopped!!!!!!

This just goes to show you how blind our public is, government blowing up rigs and not leaving them for artificial reefs! They kill thousands of red snapper and other reef fish and its o.k. to blast them? They won't repopulate because now their home is gone! You catch one over the limit, or undersized and the same government that I uphold wants to crucify the fisherman for something they are doing by doing this! I guess the government can do whatever it wants to do in regards to what they want and not all the American public wants! Someone needs to be held accountable for this gross mismanagement and atrocity!

I can see both sides the fence on this issue , the platforms make great habitat and holds numerous forms of life , but leaving platforms that are out of service out there is expensive and a liablity , I worked on platforms for 4 years and jumped from platform to platform via helicopter every day and very seldom slept at the same structure 2 nights in a row and I seen how expensive it is to do anything thing out there , they have to send people to the unmanned structures for lights and fog horn maintance and then there is the liablity if a ship or boat runs into to it and many other senerios that could occur --------seems they could blow out the legs at the base and let them fall over if the water was deep enough for safe passage above the platform after it was laid over but would think that the platform would have to be cleaned out of all materials hazzardous to the enviroment which would probally cost more than the platform cost to build back when --------------------- seems that science should have some type of sound wave or chemical that would run the fish out the area temporally with out harm to them till after the explosions of the legs take place

what i was saying is to cut the platform down below the waterline and leave the bottom like the freeport sulphur platform by grand isle!

It is not the oil companies that are at fault here. It is the gov't as usual. The law requires the removal. Against the law to leave them in place.

Avenues to leave in place as reefs but that route is horrible. The liability issue does not go away and we know the sue sue sue world we live in now has come back to haunt us.

Oil companies would like nothing more than save money on rig removal and remove the liability concerns.

Currently there or two routes for rigs to be left. One requires removal down to 50 ft below the surface and the other requires removal down to 85' of clearance.

Oil companies don't really even look into this for the 50' clearance route anymore. I guess it is a lot of work and money to propose it and have the request be denied.

People are trying to change the rules and even impose a moratorium on rig removal but have so far me with no success.

if they topple the rig in place then it leaves too high a risk it could damage the pipelines or well head on the bottom from storms and hurricanes that ''might'' cause shifting of the structure causing it to damage something.

i agfree its not very likely but the liabity is still there and see BP as to what a bad oil spill can cost you, so you can see why oil companies dont really care if the fish need to find a new home.

the problem isnt normal water traffic it is the large ships with deep drafts and they need that 50ft depth rule so it rolling swells they dont have to worry about bottoming out on top of an old rig.

it would never happen but if they could settle on a marked channel for deep draft vessels to use then other areas could shift to a 25-30ft rule and THAT is something oil companies could make work. it eliminates the liability, saves then money, and helps the fishing. the reason they dont bother with the 50ft rule is if you think about it your still removing 90% of the rig and not saving a penny. when you cut the rig loose it costs the same to cut it at the bottom as it does to cut it 20ft off the bottom so there is nothing in it for them to try and leave something behind. if the rules allowed them to leave 30-40% of the rig behind and only need to remove the top 60-70% then that does save them money and time so they would like that idea.

the key solution to this problem lies within the safe navagation rules with underwater obstructions, thats where changes need to be made so large vessels arent grant free travel anywhere they wanted in shallow waters making underwater hazzards a big issue. if they had ''safety zones'' to stay within in shallow waters then the gulf wide rules can be adjusted and more shallow water reefs can be built.

KeaKar, just to let you know, when a platfrom is lft as an artificial reef, there is no longer any wellheads on the platfrom. All well have been P&A'd which mean the well has been cemented and removed. As far as the production equipment, it has to be cleaned or removed from the structure then it can be used as a reef. Just wanted to clarify this for those who may not be familiar with the operations offshore so that we don't think that using these old structures would cause an environmental concern.

exactly correct!!! if u blow them up or leave them for a reef, they cant have pipelines or whatever still connected to them!!! so why not leave them there??

Partly because they don't really save any money by leaving them in place. No finacial incentive. They still have to do a whole lot of work to leave the rig as a reef. And they are not absolved of any liability.

In our sue happy country when someone can sue a lawnmower company and win when the buyer has his hands cut to pieces because he stuck his hand in the blades because he was using the push lawn mower to trim his hedges then that sort of thing creates an business environment where companies don't wont to assume any risk.

That is a true story.

The state demands all kinds of responsibilities both finacial and physical on the oil companies that they have to do and maintain after the fact that they would just see it as a losing business agreement.

i hear what you saying!! lawyers???? runination of this country, not all of them just 95% of them!! also remember, some of them grow up to become politicians, so they can help us out??? did i say us or themselves???

They used to let us keep the fish on the Arapaho it's a Derrick barge the tugs would go around collecting the fish but know we can't get them sad