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BLM stops work on South NPR-A DOI Assistant Secretary Stephen Allred says energy development ‘not appropriate at this time in the South NPR-A’ Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Department of the Interior has stopped its planning work for the southern area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
DOI Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Stephen Allred said May 14 that the Bureau of Land Management will discontinue the planning effort.
“We came to this decision after listening to comments from local communities during our public outreach effort,” Allred said.
At public meetings last year the agency said local residents expressed concern over potential impacts to subsistence resources, especially the western Arctic caribou herd, whose primary calving area is within the 9.2 million acre South NPR-A.
“Our decision to stop this effort underscores Secretary Kempthorne’s commitment to sound planning decisions and environmental protection,” Allred said. “The BLM weighed the practicality of energy development and determined it is not appropriate at this time in the South NPR-A.”
BLM resource assessments indicate the South NPR-A planning area contains limited oil reserves, estimated to be approximately 2.1 percent of the undiscovered oil in NPR-A. Although the area contains an estimated 27 percent of NPR-A’s undiscovered natural gas reserves, there is no transportation system to move the gas to market.
BLM is continuing work in its supplemental plan for the Northeast portion of NPR-A.
The 23 million acre petroleum reserve was set aside by President Harding in 1923 to provide an emergency supply of oil for the U.S. Navy. NPR-A is managed by the Department of the Interior for the future development of national oil and gas reserves.
Infrastructure a major challenge The South NPR-A land use plan isn’t likely to be taken up again in the foreseeable future, BLM Alaska District spokeswoman Sharon Wilson told Petroleum News May 15.
“The major challenge is the infrastructure,” she said. While there is certainly potential for natural gas in South NPR-A, at this time there is no way to transport any gas that might be found.
Another factor in the decision to stop work, Wilson said, was the agency’s desire to channel planning efforts to the supplemental environmental impact statement for the Northeast NPR-A. BLM started work on the supplement to the Northeast plan amendment in December in response to a September decision by the U.S. District Court for Alaska which found the Northeast NPR-A amendment to the integrated activity plan-EIS failed to adequately address cumulative impact. The court vacated BLM’s January 2006 record of decision which opened lands that had been closed to oil and gas leasing in the 4.6 million acre Northeast NPR-A.
Wilson said BLM expects to complete the supplement by March 2008.
Coal a known resource Addressing a question that came up early in the South NPR-A planning efforts, Wilson agreed that coal is a known resource in South NPR-A. For many years people have expressed an interest in developing coal and hardrock minerals in the area.
NPR-A was designated an oil and gas reserve, but is “closed to coal leasing hardrock mining activities” and BLM cannot permit those activities, so “it doesn’t make sense to address them in a land use plan,” she said.
“The agency wants to put its time and effort where the public would reap the most benefit,” Wilson said.
While South NPR-A work has been halted, work is continuing on the Colville River special area management plan, she said. That work is being led by BLM’s Arctic field office in Fairbanks. The plan will address subsistence; wildlife and their habitat; and scenic, recreational, scientific and other resources, values and uses of the Colville River special area.
BLM expects to complete the Colville plan in 2008.
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