Virginia’s Marine Waters

The process has begun to open up Virginia’s marine waters to offshore drilling for oil and gas. The drilling site, a three million-acre zone about 50 miles off of Virginia’s coast, is expected to yield about 130 million barrels of oil and 1,140 billion cubic feet of gas. To put this in context, Americans consume about 20 million barrels of oil per day. Is such a short supply of fossil fuel worth the extraordinary risk to Virginia's marine environment and coastal communities from potential spills, as well as from the daily environmental impact from piping and processing oil and gas on land? 

The benefit a short-term supply of energy such production would yield, even on a regional scale, is dramatically outweighed by the harm to the environment and communities, and puts us on the wrong track in terms of curbing the impacts of global warming. Rather than continuing to feed our dependence on oil, lawmakers should instead pursue the least costly, readily available, and most environmentally friendly solution by curtailing demand through increased energy and fuel efficiency, conservation, and development of clean, renewable energy.

Learn more about how offshore drilling will affect Virginia and other states in our region. This work is part of our regional Healthy Air & Clean Energy and Coast and Wetlands programs.

Photo: ©Dwight Dyke