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Environmental, Native groups look to enter fray Organizations move for intervenor status to oppose Alaska governor’s lawsuit seeking access to ANWR coastal plain for seismic survey Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
Environmental and Native groups are looking to jump into the state’s legal battle with the federal government over access to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The administration of Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell in March sued Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and officials in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for refusing to consider the state’s proposal to conduct a seismic survey across the coastal plain of ANWR.
The coastal plain is considered highly prospective for oil and gas, but environmentalists and some Natives have long fought to protect the area from industry intrusion.
On May 1, lawyers for nine environmental and Native organizations filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit on the side of the federal defendants.
The groups include the Gwich’in Steering Committee; the Alaska Wilderness League; the Center for Biological Diversity; Defenders of Wildlife; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Northern Alaska Environmental Center; Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands, or REDOIL; the Sierra Club; and The Wilderness Society.
The state’s plan Parnell’s plan involves conducting a three-dimensional seismic survey across the coastal plain but no drilling. The Republican governor has pledged to ask state legislators for $50 million to fund the work.
Parnell says seismic data acquired in the mid-1980s is outdated, and a modern 3-D survey would “dramatically improve our understanding of ANWR’s resources.”
State lawyers contend a provision in ANILCA, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, allows for exploratory activity.
But federal officials disagree with the state’s reading of the law, saying any authorization for exploration expired long ago. They therefore refused to consider the state’s plan and application for a special use permit.
The state is asking the court to vacate that refusal, and order the federal defendants to review the exploration plan.
The state argues the seismic program would be conducted in winter, and would pose no appreciable threat to wildlife or the environment.
‘Crown jewel’ In court papers requesting intervenor status, the environmental and Native groups call ANWR the “crown jewel” of the nation’s wildlife refuge system.
The groups back the Fish and Wildlife Service’s rejection of the plan to conduct what they call “damaging exploration activities” on the coastal plain.
The groups cite the coastal plain’s importance as a calving ground for the Porcupine Caribou Herd, and its value for subsistence, cultural, spiritual, recreational and aesthetic purposes.
For the Gwich’in Nation, protecting the coastal plain is no less than a “human rights issue,” lawyers for the groups say.
The groups are asking the court to grant them intervenor status, as the federal agencies might not adequately represent their interests in the case.
For one thing, the groups say, it’s unclear if the Department of the Interior will continue to hold its “current political position” that the coastal plain should remain shut to oil and gas.
In 1987, the groups note, the interior secretary at that time recommended that Congress open the coastal plain to oil and gas leasing and exploration.
“This is still the only official recommendation from DOI to Congress regarding oil and gas leasing, exploration, and development on the Coastal Plain,” the groups said as part of their May 1 motion to intervene.
The groups say they’re focused on a goal of winning wilderness designation for the coastal plain, whereas the Interior Department has dual missions of both protecting and developing the nation’s natural resources.
At press time, the court had not yet ruled on the motion to intervene. U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason of Anchorage is presiding over the case.
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