OIL RIGS TEEMING WITH FISH DATA FOR UCSB STUDY.

Byline: Kermit Pattison Daily News Staff Writer

With their scales shimmering in the underwater light, the schools of silver and yellow fish glide past massive underwater formations.

A scene from an offshore reef? Not exactly. The footage, captured on video, came from the legs of an offshore oil rig in the Santa Barbara Channel.

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have found some offshore oil rigs home to a startling number of rockfish and invertebrates, providing scientific evidence of a secret long-known to anglers.

``On some of the platforms, there were far more fish than we had thought,'' said Milton Love, an associate research biologist at UCSB who is leading the study.

Examining platforms in Ventura County and up and down the coast, Love said researchers discovered more than 25,000 fish on some rigs. The research, part of a $1.1 million, three-year study, could have an impact on the future of the rigs as they are dismantled in the coming decades.

``Ultimately, the government is going to have to figure out what they want done with these platforms when their usefulness is gone,'' Love said. ``The question is, do you leave them in place, haul them somewhere else in the ocean or put them on land and cut them up for scrap?''

The legs of the oil rigs represent a kind of vertical reef, allowing researchers to examine the stratification of marine life at different depths.

Near the surface, barnacles and mussels tend to cluster along the legs of the rigs just as they do on piers. Further down appear the strawberry anemones, rock scallops and starfish. Rockfish, like yellowtails and bocaccios swim through the waters.

``It's a whole hodgepodge of things,'' said Donna Schroeder, a Ph.D. candidate at UCSB who heads the study's diving team.

``Because of the greater current on the rigs, the invertebrate life is more abundant,'' she said. ``You get more larvae encountering the rigs. There's more food because of the higher currents.''

The study focuses on seven oil platforms along the coast between Long Beach and Point Arguello north of Santa Barbara, including platforms Gina and Gilda off Ventura and Oxnard. Love said he hopes to add more rigs to the list, although some oil companies have been wary about allowing researchers to explore under their platforms.

The research team utilizes divers to study the underwater life beneath the hulking rigs. They also have hired a miniature submarine to sound the depths and film the life beneath the structures.

Two years ago, sportfishing groups launched an effort to persuade Chevron - which is in the process of dismantling four platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel - to turn the scrap into artificial reefs. But Chevron said the proposal came too late and plans to remove the rigs this summer.

Like natural reefs, the rigs draw fish who naturally tend to congregate around structures. In some cases, Love said oil rigs may be even more attractive to fish than natural reefs because the ocean currents provide a better food supply.

``Fish in particular don't care what stuff it is,'' said Love. ``They like rock and they love sewer pipes. They don't care.''

The study began one year ago and will continue for at least two more years. It was funded by a grant from the National Biological Service to look at fish populations around reefs in Southern California.

``Some platforms have very large numbers of fish while others have very few,'' said Love. ``The numbers of fish and platforms change over the year.''