Word: canyonized
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...will begin drilling for oil and gas off the Northeast Coast by early summer. The oilmen won a hard-fought victory last week when the U.S. Supreme Court, by refusing to hear an appeal of a lower-court decision, signaled a go-ahead to exploit acreage near the Baltimore Canyon, which lies 50 to 90 miles off Atlantic City, N.J. The most optimistic geologists estimate that this tract contains up to 1.4 billion bbl. of oil and 9 trillion cu. ft. of natural gas. That would be equal to all the oil and gas now drilled...
Last week's cancellation was merely the latest obstacle to offshore oil exploration. In a sale held 18 months ago, 39 oil companies paid $1.13 billion to lease drilling tracts in the Baltimore Canyon, an area east of Atlantic City, N.J., that may contain up to 1.4 billion bbl. of oil and 9.4 trillion cu. ft. of natural gas. But a suit by New York's Suffolk County, which is worried about the impact of oilfield accidents on its $ 1 billion-a-year fishing and recreation businesses, has kept the oilmen ashore. "It's not fair," laments an oil company...
...Supreme Court will not decide before late this month whether it will even hear an appeal of the federal court ruling banning Baltimore Canyon drilling. Resolution of the Georges Bank dispute will take longer. Environmentalists and public officials in Massachusetts and on Long Island insist that they are not trying to prevent offshore oil production permanently. But they make it clear that they intend to delay drilling until they are satisfied their coastlines and fisheries are being properly protected...
...reason why oilfields and fisheries cannot coexist. Long and extensive oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has not harmed fishing; indeed, oil workers there often catch sizable fish from the drilling platforms. Nor have oil spills at sea hurt fishing. The fishing recovered quickly from the 1967 Torrey Canyon spill off the coast of England; studies by marine biologists reveal that last year's massive Argo Merchant oil spill, which occurred in midwinter when high winds were able to disperse the oil, caused little damage to Georges Bank...
Indisputably, the delays in offshore oil exploration damage U.S. efforts to end dependence on unreliable foreign sources of oil. But the delays will continue. Even if the Supreme Court gives a go ahead and the companies find oil in the Baltimore Canyon this spring, it would still take them up to five years to get wells into production...