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Delegation urges CD-5 application action Alaska’s members of Congress have written to administration officials, expressing concern over delays in first NPR-A development Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The members of Alaska’s congressional delegation — Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich and Congressman Don Young — have written to top administration officials to express concern about lack of coordination among federal agencies on ConocoPhillips Alaska’s CD-5 permit application.
In February the Corps of Engineers rejected ConocoPhillips’ plan to develop its lease holdings on the eastern edge of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska by constructing a gravel road and bridge across the Nigliq Channel of the Colville River. The corps said a pipeline buried under the Nigliq Channel would have less of an environmental impact.
ConocoPhillips appealed and in early December the corps remanded some issues for reconsideration.
In a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Army for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy (Corps of Engineers), the Alaska delegation said they have “ongoing concerns and interest” in the appeal by ConocoPhillips Alaska of the denial by the corps’ Alaska District of a permit for the CD-5 Alpine satellite development in NPR-A.
Commenting on the decision by the corps’ Alaska District, the three said the Alaska District “had insisted, despite nearly five years of environmental study and careful consultation with tribal, local, state, and federal stakeholders, that a three-phase buried pipeline — requiring exponentially increased air traffic and subject to uncertain monitoring issues over the life of the fields — would be less environmentally damaging than the proposed road.”
Several of ConocoPhillips’ reasons for appeal were validated, and remanded to the Alaska District.
“This may indicate the complexity of the issue, but we worry that it also speaks to a chronic and unacceptable void in communication and transparent analysis on the part of those agencies responsible for advancing this important project,” the delegation said.
Not advocating specific course The Alaska delegation said it was not advocating a specific course of action.
“We are, however, compelled to voice our serious and continued disappointment at the federal government’s persistent inability to coordinate its agencies in such a way as to move this critical project forward on a reasonable timeline.”
They argued that prospects in a National Petroleum Reserve should be the most “assertively pursued and permitted” of any national oil and gas prospects.
“The opposite has occurred in this case, and this is already proving needlessly costly in terms of jobs, federal leasing revenues, and the Administration’s stated goal of energy independence.”
Aquatic resource On the subject of EPA’s “designation of the Colville River Delta as an ‘aquatic resource of national importance’ for purposes of this application,” the delegation said that “caused as both alarm and curiosity as regards the process and power behind this designation.”
“Insofar as those who actually depend on the Colville for its aquatic resources, this designation flies in the face of their preferred method of accessing CD-5,” the delegation said, and noted that this was not surprising, “since the designation requires no public input, consultation, or even notice.”
They questioned whether steps to permit this and other projects in a petroleum reserve “give the applicant and the public a clear path forward and transparent public record,” and said they hoped “to better understand what appears to be an opaque, unilateral process to many seasoned observers.”
Whatever the outcome of ConocoPhillips’ appeal, the delegation said they “expect both thoughtful and swift responses to the issues raised in this letter, and we expect those responses to occur in the form of both words and concurrent action.”
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