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The winds of change in Arctic Alaska Politicians seek views on future Arctic policies in the face of climate change, industrial development and environmental protection Alan Bailey Petroleum News
As the Arctic warms, the summer sea ice retreats and evolving weather patterns disrupt communities in northern Alaska, opinions on how to respond to the changes sweeping across the northernmost part of the United States are heating up in parallel with the climate. And faced with the need to reconcile people who see the opening of the Arctic as an opportunity for new economic development with those who see development as a threat to the environment and the traditional culture of the indigenous Arctic peoples, politicians are trying to come up with Arctic policies that reflect the realities of what is happening north of the Arctic Circle in the early 21st century.
Two hearings, held in Anchorage on Aug. 20 and 21, provided opportunities for public input to the policymaking process.
In the first of these meetings, a field hearing of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Sen. Lisa Murkowski invited public input on U.S. Arctic policy.
In the second meeting, the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force of the Obama administration sought public comments on ocean policy, a topic which encapsulates the whole of the U.S. offshore but which in the Anchorage meeting triggered comments relating mainly to Alaska. Task force members present in Anchorage included Nancy Sutley, White House council on environmental quality, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, David Hayes, deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior, and Thad Allen, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Impact of change In opening the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing, Murkowski said that U.S. Arctic policy must recognize the impact of climate change and the resulting increase in activity in the Arctic.
“We recognize that the Arctic is becoming more accessible due to a loss of summer sea ice and increases in technology. Increased maritime activity … will demand new infrastructure and investment, as well as a greater presence in the region,” Murkowski said.
She expressed concern than many people do not perceive the United States to be an Arctic nation, and that this misperception may be inhibiting the funding of Arctic infrastructure upgrades.
National issue Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell told the subcommittee that Arctic policy is primarily a national and international issue, but that Alaska needs a seat at the table in developing that policy. And he overviewed the state’s perspectives on a wide range of issues, starting with the impact of change in the Arctic on the state’s inhabitants.
“Alaskans have been adapting for years,” Parnell said. “Changes in the Arctic affect us every day.”
And change especially impacts the people who subsist through hunting, fishing and food gathering, for food and for preservation of their culture, he said.
From the perspective of climate change, Parnell discussed with Murkowski the question of government assistance for coastal villages, forced to move or under threat as a result of coastal erosion as temperatures rise.
Vast resources On the other hand, Alaska enjoys a huge mineral wealth, and holds vast resources in both traditional and renewable energy sources, Parnell said.
“Offshore Alaska, the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, those can be explored safely in the near term, producing oil and gas for decades,” he said, adding that the development of Alaska oil and gas can play a vital role in achieving U.S. energy security, while also steering exploration into land and seas protected by strict environmental laws. And the state is pursuing the development of a natural gas pipeline to bring clean and abundant gas from the North Slope to market, he said.
In addition, as a region with abundant alternative energy resources, the state could act as a test bed for a variety of technologies such as wind turbines and wood-chip-fired power stations, Parnell said.
“Alaska is America’s alternative energy source,” he said.
Parnell also requested a focus on more Arctic science research, including the development of modern maps and research into improved weather forecasting.
From the perspective of foreign policy, Parnell urged the Senate to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea treaty, to enable the United States to claim jurisdiction over areas of the continental shelf beyond the 200-mile limit.
Parnell also expressed a need for a heightened Coast Guard presence, with new icebreakers, to improve national security in the Arctic region.
“I’m here to seek funding for a new Coast Guard duty station or port on Alaska’s northern coast,” he said.
Partnership In the Ocean Policy Task Force meeting, Larry Hartig, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and the state’s witness to the task force, requested a strong federal and state partnership, and the engagement of local communities, in implementing an ocean policy. The state, with its involvement in coastal management, is in an especially good position to determine whether a particular policy will work, Hartig said.
Offshore resources, including oil and gas, and the fisheries, are of special importance for Alaska and the nation, he said.
“Alaska is a resource storehouse,” Hartig said. “Our oceans and coastal watersheds produce approximately 14 percent of the nation’s domestic oil production and over 50 percent of the nation’s seafood. In addition, Alaska has a vibrant cruise ship and tourist industry, attracting visitors from around the world. … Alaska has the ability to produce 5 to 8 percent of the nation’s natural gas supply.”
There is, however, a lack of base-line offshore environmental data and monitoring, and an ocean policy should include initiatives to identify information gaps and to fill those gaps, he said.
Health and vitality important And Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, told the panel that the health and vitality of U.S. oceans is of paramount importance to the oil and gas industry.
“Evidence of our focus on environmental protection is apparent when one considers that with all of the oil produced in the (U.S.) outer continental shelf since 1980, less than 1/1000 of a percent has been spilled,” Crockett said. And oil spill prevention measures in the 40 years of offshore oil operations in Alaska’s Cook Inlet oil industry have proved “again and again” to be successful, she said.
Alaska’s offshore is home to some of the most potentially prolific undeveloped hydrocarbon basins in the world, and a third of the estimated U.S. oil resources and about one quarter of the nation’s natural gas, she said.
“Clearly Alaska’s oil and gas offshore resources are important to the nation’s economic and energy security,” Crockett said. It is critical that energy production is included within an ocean policy, and that all ocean users are considered, to ensure that multiple uses of the nation’s oceans continue. And the oil and gas leasing process established by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and implemented by the Minerals Management Service already takes into account multiple uses of the oceans, balancing environmental stewardship and ensuring responsible development, Crockett commented.
Marine spatial planning, a new technique already implemented in Norway for managing ocean use, looks useful as a concept, but implementing a new ocean policy will involve many difficult issues relating to multiple-use planning, Crockett said. And focused ocean research is extremely important in understanding the impact of specific activities on the ocean environment, she said.
Fran Ulmer, chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage also stressed the need for more Arctic research. It is especially important to understand the complexities of the Arctic ecosystems and their relationships to human needs, Ulmer said.
The challenges are to fund the research, ensure that it is relevant to ocean policy and then make data available to decision makers. Coordinated research is needed in the physical, biological and social sciences, she said.
“There are many, many needs,” Ulmer said. “Work is certainly being done. … But the list is still long of what needs to be done and must be accomplished … so that policy makers have benefit of information in a timely way.”
Community dependence Vera Metcalf, director of the Eskimo Walrus Commission and a commissioner in the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, also emphasized a need for scientific research, saying that the preservation of natural and cultural resources is critical to marine hunting communities, especially given community dependence on marine wildlife.
“This dependence is a significant cultural foundation to us, because without them we, as Alaska Natives, are even more vulnerable to the many changes to come, like climate change and ecological change,” she said.
Ocean policy should especially emphasize research into climate change in the Bering Sea, Arctic human health, Arctic infrastructure and the region’s indigenous cultures, she said. Metcalf particularly cited the Alaska Ocean Observing System as needing long-term funding, with data gathering being especially critical in the changing Arctic.
“The Arctic is home to cultures, languages, knowledge, people who have survived many changes already for millennia and will continue to be at home in the Arctic for many years to come,” Metcalf said. “… I believe maintaining the strong, fundamental link that we have with the natural world will be a measure of how well we take care of the Arctic and its seas.”
The Marine Mammals Protection Act provides a basis for the cooperative management of species in the Arctic seas, and local residents must be included in the stewardship of the oceans, Metcalf said. It is also important that the U.S. Coast Guard patrols the ocean, to protect the resources, she said.
Reduce carbon dioxide Dorothy Childers, executive director of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, said that carbon-dioxide-induced global warming and seawater acidification are overriding considerations when it comes to managing the ocean environment.
“We can have all the best ideas for managing the uses of marine resources but none of that will matter if we don’t avert climate change and ocean acidification,” Childers said. “Climate change is happening at a bewildering pace. … We ask the task force to make emissions reduction a feature of U.S. ocean policy.”
Funding for ocean monitoring is also needed, to enable a better understanding of the natural systems and processes. And large-scale offshore undertakings with significant environmental risk seem “especially unwise” without a better understanding of the oceans, she said.
“MMS’s recent lease sale in the Chukchi Sea flies in the face of a profound ignorance of what the effects might be, coupled with the certainty that we cannot clean up spilled oil there,” Childers said.
And U.S. ocean policy needs to support Alaska’s often unique marine habitats, such as the cold-water corals of the Aleutians and Southeast waters, as well as the indigenous cultures and fishing communities.
“We need to forgo those industrial developments that pose substantial risk to the resource space we rely on. Proposed lease sales in Bristol Bay are especially egregious,” Childers said, citing potential impacts of oil and gas development on the major fisheries of the southeastern Bering Sea.
Sacred relationship Caroline Cannon, president of the Native Village of Point Hope, the Chukchi Sea village involved in litigation against oil and gas leasing in the Chukchi Sea, said that seismic surveying, drilling and eventual oil spills would have a far reaching and permanent impact on the land and waters that form the traditional hunting grounds of the Inupiat people.
“Our people have a sacred relationship with the ocean and the marine mammals,” Cannon said. “We depend on the Arctic Ocean to sustain us. It is a delicate system of Arctic species.”
On the other hand, one Point Hope villager, a senior vice president in oil industry service company ASRC Energy Services, a subsidiary of Native regional corporation Arctic Slope Regional Corp., commented that offshore oil and gas development could bring jobs, careers and opportunities to North Slope residents.
And Susan Childs, spokeswoman for Shell, the company that is spearheading the drive to explore for oil and gas in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, told the task force that the U.S. oceans and coastal waters should be available to the American people for multiple uses, and that oil and gas resources from the outer continental shelf are a vital factor in supporting the U.S. economy and the nation’s energy security. Childs expressed concern about what she sees as a relatively short time frame in which the Ocean Policy Task Force expects to complete its work.
Oil and gas needed And, although renewable energies will become an important component of the nation’s energy mix, a quick transition to renewables is highly unlikely, thus driving a need for oil and gas for decades to come.
“We urge the task force to pursue a measured and thoughtful process to address the policy development for ocean management and stewardship,” Childs said.
Edward Itta, mayor of the North Slope Borough and a person at the center of discussions and negotiations between the oil industry and the northern Alaska communities in the debate over offshore development, said that amid multiple claims for use of the Arctic oceans in response to global warming and improved access, the Arctic communities are trying to preserve their traditional use of “our oceans as our garden.”
“We are not afraid of change, as Inupiat Eskimos. It’s done a lot of good things for our people,” Itta said. “But all of us know that change involves risk. And the risks of some of these potential activities in the Arctic are substantial. And we just want to make sure that risks are controlled and mitigated as well as humanly possible. … Remember that we, as a people, are a part of the environment.”
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