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September 2013
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Vol. 18, No. 37 Week of September 15, 2013

Contracting issues delay NPR-A cleanup

Plan called for work near Barrow to begin as early as this year, now likely to move to 2014, BLM says, citing no risk from delay

Becky Bohrer

Associated Press

Contracting issues have delayed the start of planned cleanup work around abandoned well sites in the Alaska Arctic, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Sept. 10.

In May, BLM-Alaska released a draft plan identifying 50 abandoned wells in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska that it believes require cleanup by the agency. The plan prioritized the remediation of the first 16 of those sites in the reserve. One of those sites — Iko Bay Test Well No. 1, described as lying near a well-traveled winter road, with a building well known for providing shelter to travelers in poor weather — has a gas leak that the agency said could pose a threat to public health and safety.

The plan called for surface work at several sites southeast of Barrow to begin as early as this year, with cleanup of drums submerged in oil seeps and other debris. But Erin Curtis, a spokeswoman for BLM-Alaska, said by email that BLM is in the process of finalizing an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that would allow the Corps to let a contract to do the work on BLM’s behalf. She said it’s highly unlikely the contracting steps will be completed for work to begin this fall, so it will more likely be next year before the cleanup around those sites is done.

She said in an interview that there is no greater risk associated with the delay. The debris has been out there for a long time and will get frozen over during the winter, she said.

The projected cost for that work is $720,000, which is all the funding the agency has for legacy well work this year due to automatic federal budget cuts, she said in her email.

More than 130 wells drilled

BLM manages the reserve, where more than 130 wells were drilled under the federal government’s direction as part of an exploratory oil and gas program from the 1940s to the 1980s. State leaders have pushed for progress on the cleanup and insisted it is a federal responsibility.

It’s not clear what the total cost to address the priority sites might be, and Curtis said additional work will be dependent upon funding. Given budget uncertainty, BLM hasn’t been able to secure a small drilling rig necessary to complete plugging at the Iko Bay site, and that work isn’t likely to happen this winter, she said.

Curtis said she expected the final version of the draft plan to be released soon. The initial hope was to have the plan finalized within weeks after the draft was released. But Curtis said it took a little longer than expected to get comments from interested parties. She characterized the comments BLM received as generally supportive of the top priorities the agency identified.

Cathy Foerster, a commissioner with the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission who has been critical of BLM’s handling of the legacy well issue, said she was encouraged that BLM was working with her group and others and taking their comments into account.

Foerster said she agrees with BLM on the highest-priority wells but worries that the agency doesn’t seem concerned about other sites. She remains concerned about the availability of funding and is taking a wait-and-see approach on any work that’s done.

“I won’t feel good until the work is done and I’ve seen how it’s done,” she said.

Curtis said the draft plan is meant to cover short-term issues. She said the intent is to look at additional sites once the highest-priority sites are addressed.






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Copyright Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska, LLC (Petroleum News)(PNA)©1999-2019 All rights reserved. The content of this article and website may not be copied, replaced, distributed, published, displayed or transferred in any form or by any means except with the prior written permission of Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska, LLC (Petroleum News)(PNA). Copyright infringement is a violation of federal law.