6/7/2023 0 Comments Outbank login"Mobil agreed to call it a draft so we don't have to act in 30 days," Ainger said. Ainger, regional supervisor of the Minerals Management Service, said federal rules would normally require his office to rule on Mobil's permit application within 30 days of filing, but his department agreed to an extended review process that will allow North Carolina officials to study the environmental implications of Mobil's plan. The potential for driving that out is what we fear." Ralph V. "Is the whole coastline going to be industrialized? We make our living from fishing and tourism. We want to keep it in its natural state." "Why do we continually have to open up frontier areas for this instead of having more energy conservation?" Mizelle said. "It's legal for them to do this," said real estate developer Betty Brindley, sitting on the deck of her house overlooking Currituck Sound in Duck, a fast-growing and upscale resort community north of here. The issue here is whether the country's need for new energy resources justifies exposing this state's beaches and wildlife to any environmental risk, however slight. Martin and other Mobil officials said the drilling project poses no environmental danger to the Outer Banks. The federal government would receive royalties of one-eighth the value of any gas or oil produced. "But if the reservoir turns out to be full," he said, "the geologists tell us we could be looking at 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas." That would be a major energy find, equal to about 3.2 percent of the existing proved gas reserves in the 48 continental states and the heating equivalent of about 1 billion barrels of oil, according to the American Gas Association. Look at the historical markers - the wreck of this ship, the wreck of that." Jim Martin, Mobil's project manager, said there is one chance in 10 that the exploratory drilling will discover a commercially valuable reservoir of natural gas one chance in 100 of finding enough oil to make it economically worth producing. Mobil is planning to station its drilling crews and equipment on a 535-foot-long ship moored off the coast, and Ries noted with satisfaction that "this whole area is known as the graveyard of the Atlantic. Ries, a 17-year resident of Kill Devil Hills, south of here. All we can hope for is a big hurricane out there while they are doing it," said Frances K. Tourists and sunbathers interviewed at random along the wide white beaches said they had heard nothing about it. The local opposition is vociferous but apparently weak, and no state agency or major environmental group has stepped forward to challenge the giant oil company's right to sink an exploratory well. If the permit is granted, as appears likely, drilling is to begin next May in a nine-square-mile area about 40 miles off the coast. Mobil heads a consortium of eight companies that paid the Interior Department nearly $300 million for the exploration rights in 1981, and on Friday filed a foot-thick, detailed application for a drilling permit with the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service. "Real estate development we can control locally this is beyond us." As residents of the seaside villages strung out along North Carolina's fragile Outer Banks have discovered to their dismay, Mobil has been preparing its offshore exploration program for years while most of them were not paying attention. "It looks bleak," said Mizelle, a dental hygienist who has been a leader of the activists. is planning to drill for oil and gas in the ocean east of here, and Mizelle said LegaSea and other opponents are probably not able to stop the exploration. The Whalebone Surf Shop has sold all its "No Drill, No Spill" T-shirts, boosting morale and raising a little money for a citizens group called LegaSea, but Linda Mizelle is discouraged anyway.
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