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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
June 2014

Vol. 19, No. 25 Week of June 22, 2014

Disagreement over resolving CD-5 appeal

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the plaintiffs in an appeal against the corps’ dredge-and-fill permit for the ConocoPhillips CD-5 oilfield development in the northeastern National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska have proposed different ways forward to resolve the appeal case. Some residents of the village of Nuiqsut, near CD-5, had appealed the permit in federal District Court in Alaska, claiming that the permit violates the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water act.

In a May 27 court order Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that the corps, when issuing the permit, had been “arbitrary” in concluding, without explanation, that no further environmental analysis was needed following changes to the CD-5 project and the availability of new information since the issuance in 2004 of an environmental impact statement for a series of new fields in the Colville River Delta area, including CD-5. The judge ordered the parties in the case to file proposals on how the case should proceed.

In a June 17 court filing the corps asked the court to establish a proceeding whereby the corps would within 90 days prepare an explanation for not requiring any rework of the 2004 environmental impact statement. Following the filing of the explanation, the plaintiffs would have 30 days to file a brief, with the defendants then having 30 days to respond.

Meantime the corps permit should remain in place, the corps said, arguing that CD-5 activities planned for this summer would have a minimal environmental impact and that the nature of the case did not warrant an injunction against the work proceeding.

The group of villagers who appealed the permit has taken a diametrically different view. The permit decision should be remanded to the corps, with the permit being cancelled pending a reconsideration of the decision, the villagers told the court, also on June 17.

- Alan Bailey






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