Something very new in the ecology movement: a vigorous effort to save an abandoned Gulf of Mexico oil platform from demolition

摘要

Thirty years after it was built and months after it was decommissioned, an oil platform set to be demolished under US Interior Department rules governing non-producing ocean structures has acquired some unusual defenders. The platform, High Island 389-A - one of about 650 such oil andgas industry relics known as idle iron - rises out of the Gulfof Mexico about 100 miles southeast of Galveston, Texas. Avisitor, Melissa Gaskill, might almost be rendering the scenefor readers of the journal Nature:"Below the surface, corals, sea fans and sponges cover its maze of pipes. Schools of jack and snapper, solitary grouper and barracuda circle in its shadows. Dive boats periodically stop at the enormous structure, where dolphins, sea turtles and sharks are often spotted."