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Pew group slams Arctic offshore response plans Report says severe weather and sea conditions, and lack of support infrastructure, would compromise attempts to recover spilled oil Alan Bailey Petroleum News
The Pew Environment Group has published a report strongly questioning the practicality of conducting an oil spill response in the Arctic offshore.
“Darkness, extreme weather and shifting sea ice could delay efforts to stop an oil-well blowout in the U.S. Arctic Ocean for six months or more, trapping spewed oil in ice for up to a decade,” the report says, according to a Nov. 10 press release announcing the report’s publication.
Response plans not only fail to realistically account for the harsh climate and remoteness of the Arctic offshore, but they also make overly optimistic assumptions about issues such as the percentage of oil that could be removed from Arctic waters, the report says. And assumptions about the effectiveness of response techniques such as in-situ burning and the use of dispersants derive from small-scale tests or guesswork, given that there have been no Arctic marine oil spills from which to derive a track record of technique use, the report says.
Complications Complications for oil spill responders could include frigid temperatures, 10- to 30-foot seas, poor visibility and hurricane force winds. And the lack of a road infrastructure in most of northern Alaska, coupled with the absence of a major sea port and the lack of resident U.S. Coast Guard vessels, would all make the logistics of moving response equipment and personnel to an oil spill site very challenging, the report says.
The report also says that there are no computer models for the adequate prediction of how an Arctic oil spill would interact with sea ice, and that there is insufficient baseline environmental data for the measurement of the impacts of an oil spill on Arctic ecosystems and wildlife.
“The Gulf of Mexico catastrophe showed us the consequences of lax oversight and inadequate response capacity, even in temperate waters near population centers,” said Marilyn Heiman, director of Pew’s U.S. Arctic program. “Sites proposed for drilling in Alaska’s Arctic Ocean are some of the most remote areas on Earth, and the challenges of drilling are formidable. Until reforms ensure that oil companies can respond to significant spills in real-world conditions, all proposed oil and gas leasing, exploration and development in the U.S. Arctic should be delayed.”
Begich response U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, has responded by saying that some comments in the report reflect recommendations in legislation introduced in Congress by himself and others.
“However, I disagree with Pew’s insistence on an unspecified moratorium on Arctic development, because the perfect set of conditions simply never occurs,” Begich said. “… Arctic resource development and transportation can be done responsibly while protecting the other important values of the region, especially the fish and wildlife vital to the subsistence way of life for residents of Alaska’s North Slope. That’s why I have introduced a comprehensive package of legislation designed to provide the resources and safeguards for responsible Arctic resource development.”
Shell, the company spearheading moves to explore for oil and gas in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, has assembled an oil spill response fleet which the company says it will station on-site, ready for any oil spill emergency during drilling operations, with additional spill response equipment also staged onshore.
The company plans to drill exploration wells during the summer open-water season and is building a containment dome to position over a well head in the unlikely event that a well blowout should occur.
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