These issues go back at least 25 years. Back in the mid-1990s Shell wanted to decommission one of its rigs in the North Sea by sinking it as an artificial reef. It was to be an experiment as to the efficacy of deep sea artificial reefs. They too had noticed increased sea life around the rigs.

Of course, Greenpeace, always on the lookout for more fund raisers, launched a campaign to oppose the plan, making all sorts of claims about pollutants on the rigs that would end up in the sea.

Shell and the various governments finally caved, as they usually do, and the reef was instead decommissioned and dismantled. Obviously the Greenpeace claims about all the pollutants on the rig were shown to be rubbish and they indeed apologised for getting it wrong.

Even worse, it was shown that some endangered corals were growing on the legs of the rig. They didn't survive the decommissioning. Greenpeace were suitably embarrassed by their hand in killing off endangered coral. But that lasted about 30 seconds and then the usual suspects moved to hide bury the truth

"the very right wing Republican governor of Florida Rick Stewart managed to get an exemption. "

Which is pretty amazing given that there's never been a governor Rick Stewart in Florida!!

Indeed, my apologies to all. I meant to write Rick Scott.

Dear mhaze,

Geez mate you do write some crap don't you.

Shell was not looking to dump Brent Spar as an artificial reef. They were looking to drop in into the Rockwell Trough which was 2,000 metres deep and well below the depth of even cold water coral to survive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Spar

Greenpeace did indeed get the crude oil figures wrong quoting 5,500 instead of 50 tonnes which they immediately corrected when they found out and apologised for. They went on to successfully sue the BBC over an interview with a Tory MP who accused Greenpeace of lying.

You asserted “Even worse, it was shown that some endangered corals were growing on the legs of the rig” Well there was one species.

You also asserted “They didn't survive the decommissioning.” Nor would they have survived Shell's disposal method as the species don't grow below 1,000 metres.

There is no record that “Greenpeace were suitably embarrassed by their hand in killing off endangered coral.” Why would they have been?

Why do you do this? You beat these things up until they are unrecognisably from the true record. It does you cause nor your tattered credibility any good at all.

There's just simply too much fishing going on !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcJFSl_YJHk
This link provides insight into trawling side-effects, just imagine how bad it would have been decades ago when boards simply scraped along the bottom, tearing apart everything in its way !
it's easy to see why marine life favours solid structures.