Seeping into the controversy about more offshore oil production is a dispute over whether increased drilling locally would lead to less oil oozing from natural seeps on the ocean floor.

Environmentalists contend no drilling-related reduction in seepage is likely but others, led by the advocacy group Stop Our Seeps (SOS), insist drilling would slow some natural seeps and benefit the environment.

The two sides differ sharply in their interpretations of the limited amount of scientific research done so far on that question — and the significance of a 1999 study by a group of UCSB professors who measured undersea seeps around Platform Holly off Goleta.

That study concluded natural seepage of oil and gas from the ocean floor in one square kilometer area around the platform declined by 50 percent between 1973 and 1995, possibly because the drilling reduced pressure in the subsea basin.

SOS spokesmen tout those findings as evidence that more offshore drilling would reduce natural seeps, which are collectively spewing tens of thousands of barrels of oil a year — along with large quantities of natural gas — into ocean waters locally.

Environmentalists and one of the study’s authors caution, however, that extrapolating the 1999 data to a broader section of the Santa Barbara County coastline is scientifically unsound.

“The suggestion that somehow drilling for oil will be good for the environment by reducing oil and gas seeps is simply bad science,” asserted Abraham Powell, president of Get Oil Out (GOO), in a press release Wednesday by four environmental organizations.

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Joining in the statement were the Environmental Defense Center of Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN) and the Community Environmental Council of Santa Barbara.

Oil and tar have been present along the county’s shores dating back to the earliest settlements by Native Americans, and remain a bane today for surfers and other beachgoers.

UCSB Professor Bruce Luyendyk, one of the study’s six authors, strongly cautioned against exaggerating its findings during a marathon hearing on oil issues Tuesday before the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.

“Our 1999 UCSB studies were made on a special case of marine seeps; one of the world’s most active,” Luyendyk noted. “However, these seeps occur over a limited area. To extrapolate the findings of our studies beyond the Coal Oil Point area cannot yet be substantiated, and there are many reasons to caution against generalizing our study results to the greater Santa Barbara Channel, much less to the California continental shelf.”

Luyendyk is a marine geophysics professor in the university’s Earth Sciences Department.

During a phone interview Wednesday, he said his “main complaint is that these various proponents (of increasing offshore drilling) have taken our study and extrapolated it into unknown territory. I don’t think there’s a logical or scientific basis for that.”

Nonetheless, the board voted 3-2 — with the trio of North County supervisors prevailing — to send a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger encouraging him to consider allowing more oil drilling off county shores.

“I was very pleased with the outcome of the supervisors’ hearing,” said Dave Cross, vice president of the Committee to Improve North County, which favors expanded oil production to boost county revenues and help lower dependence on foreign oil. “Clearly the evidence is there that oil drilling does reduce pressure that causes seeps,” and the natural seepage from those subsea basins.

“I think increased oil production is a benefit, not just for the environment” but economically as well, he added.

Critics like SBCAN’s executive director, Deborah Brasket of Orcutt, counter that drilling advocates are using the seeps issue as a false argument for boosting production and oil company profits, despite the environmental risks.

“There have just not been enough (scientific) studies on this” to conclude that more drilling off local shores would reduce natural seeps, Brasket said.

“Offshore oil drilling is not the panacea touted by Big Oil and friends,” she added, “but yet another ploy to boost profits for oil companies, prolong our dependence on oil and delay the development of renewable energy.”

State Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, also joined in the political fray by sending a letter to the supervisors urging them not to seek any policy change that would allow more offshore drilling.

“One has to ask why you are even considering such a request,” he wrote. “Making such a significant change in our county’s policy regarding offshore oil drilling should at least be based on accuracy and fact, not hysteria and conjecture.”

However, SOS co-founder Bruce Allen staunchly defends his groups’ use of the 1999 study results to argue that more drilling would be environmentally beneficial.

“It’s clear there are many (natural) seep zones beyond Coal Oil Point that are very active,” Allen said Thursday.

He cited a 2003 paper presented to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists that suggested the offshore Santa Maria Basin, between Point Conception and Point Sal, “contains the greatest known concentration of hydrocarbon seeps … in the world.” Only two of the 13 subsea oil fields in that area “are not overlain by active seeps,” the paper stated, according to Allen.

SOS, formerly known as Bring Oil Back, was formed about four years ago, and is funded mostly by donations from private individuals, Allen said. He acknowledged, though, that some of its funding is grant money from the oil company Venoco Inc., which is seeking approval to expand its drilling operations at Platform Holly, off the coast from Devereux Slough in Goleta.

Allen said he was unsure the amount of the Venoco gave to SOS, and referred that question to the group’s executive director, who could not be reached for comment.

Much of the Santa Maria Basin has Monterey shale geologic formations possibly similar to those studied at Coal Oil Point, he added. While the 1999 study doesn’t prove that seepage reductions would result from more drilling in other areas, “I think a good case could be made that the same effect would occur elsewhere” if geologic conditions are similar.

However, another of the study’s authors, UCSB Earth Science Professor Jordan Clark, voiced concern about those findings being applied to other areas without further scientific study

“I can see where further drilling in the Coal Oil Point area would reduce seepage because there are natural seeps there,” he said. “Drilling in other areas would probably not have the same effect.”

Yet, based on scientific literature and the UCSB research at Coal Oil Point, “I think there is a linkage between a reduction in seepage and increased oil production. The physics would also tell you that should happen” in areas with pre-existing, natural seeps. “If you start pumping oil out of the ground with wells, not as much needs to leave by seepages,” Clark said.

What are seeps?

Oil and methane gas created in the heat and pressure under the ocean floor flows upward through faults and cracks in rocks. Plumes of oil-coated methane bubbles reach the surface, creating natural oil slicks.

The natural seeps of crude oil and natural gas flowing into the ocean on and near the coast of California are among the largest and most active concentration of such seeps in the world.

Seeps off Coal Oil Point near UCSB put an average of 150-170 barrels of crude oil and 5 million cubic feet of natural gas into the ocean every day.

More than 1 million barrels of oil have seeped off the Southern and Central California coast since 1980.

Crude oil seeping into the sea from Coal Oil Point alone is equal to about 55,000 barrels of oil a year. About 1.8 billion cubic feet of natural gas is seeping annually into the atmosphere.

Seeps produce 122% more air pollution daily than all the motor vehicle trips in Santa Barbara County each day.

— SOURCE: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, U.S. Minerals Management Service, Western States Petroleum Association

Chuck Schultz can be reached at 925-2691, Ext. 2241, or cschultz@santamariatimes.com.