Cook Inlet discharge permits proposed

DEC and EPA permits would cover state, federal waters; drillers would be allowed to dump pollutants such as drilling fluids, cuttings

Wesley Loy

For Petroleum News

Government regulators are proposing to issue five-year “general permits” to oil and gas explorers to discharge certain pollutants into Alaska’s Cook Inlet.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation is proposing to issue a permit for state waters, while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a permit for federal waters.

The federal waters are defined as three nautical miles beyond the shoreline.

The general permits would allow exploratory drillers to discharge a range of pollutants, including drilling fluids and drill cuttings, into the inlet.

Other authorized discharges would include deck drainage, domestic wastewater, desalination unit wastes, blowout preventer fluid, boiler blowdown, fire control system test water, non-contact cooling water, uncontaminated ballast water, bilge water, excess cement slurry, and mud, cuttings and cement at the seafloor.

The permits would last five years, and would not cover discharges from development wells on Cook Inlet’s established production platforms.

Regulators say they have the legal authority to issue general permits, as opposed to individual permits to drillers.

General permits have drawn some controversy and even legal challenge in the past.

Cook Inlet is a highly dynamic water body, noted for its large and strong tides, extensive mudflats, drifting winter ice floes, high turbidity, and fluctuations in salinity due to large glacial and freshwater inputs from surrounding drainages.

The inlet also is famed for its migrating salmon, and marine mammals such as beluga whales.

Cook Inlet is about 215 miles long and narrows to 10 miles wide between the East and West Forelands. The water is generally 120 feet deep north of the forelands, increasing to 480 feet to the south.

The agencies are imposing certain restrictions on industry discharges. For instance, the proposed permits would prohibit discharges in shallow waters, and in the area of coastal marshes, river deltas, state game refuges, and critical habitat areas such as Kachemak Bay near Homer.

In documents prepared in support of the proposed permits, DEC and the EPA briefly discuss the history of industry activity in Cook Inlet, which is the state’s junior, but elder, oil and gas province.

Generally, Cook Inlet’s heydays are long past, with oil production peaking in 1970 and its sizeable natural gas reserves fast depleting.

Southcentral Alaska, where much of the state’s population lives, depends on Cook Inlet gas as a critical fuel for making electricity and heating homes and businesses.

“The present supply-demand condition for Cook Inlet gas presents a renewed incentive for exploration and development,” says a fact sheet prepared in support of the DEC discharge permit. “New gas exploration and development projects are underway and other projects are anticipated in the near future.”

The regulators note that two companies, Furie and Buccaneer, have brought jack-up drilling rigs into the inlet. Furie already has drilled two exploratory wells in its Kitchen Lights unit.

Furie and Buccaneer have coverage for exploration-related discharges under a general permit issued by the EPA in 2007. The permit expired in July 2012, but has been extended.

The DEC is taking public comment until March 11. More information is available at www.dec.state.ak.us/water/wwdp/index.htm