James -
Marine wise, a solid substrait is a bonanza for creating a food base (lowest rung of the food chain). Loose and shifting sand does not compete against rocks, which is why you see nearly every square inch of a solid substrait covered with multi-layers of life.
It is pretty much an accepted fact that: Rigs = rocks = a solid substrait = high producing food base = more life at the higher rungs
The jury is still out on the long term affects on isolated islands of highly concentrated life in a body of water where said concentrations didn't exit before.
Artificial reefs are fairly common in California, but California has a very rocky shore and already sports, IIRC, the largest (but rapidly diminishing) rock fish populations in the world.
California does have a moratorium on building new platforms. In fact next week the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors will be voting on lifting the moratorium for their county. Which is quite amazing because it was Santa Barbara who after a horrible oil spill, (I think that horrible and oil spill is redundant), in the 70's initiated the first California coastal moratorium against new oil drilling platforms. Additionally, Santa Barbara is one of those environmentally sensitive/correct, rich, liberal California cities, (mmmhh make that very rich), that the rest of the country likes to point to while rolling their eyes.
Gary
