Court rules in favor of BLM, Conoco
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Federal judge denies Nuiqsut and national enviro groups demand to grant injunction prohibiting further exploration in NPR-A
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
On Jan. 9 U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason denied a legal challenge by the Native Village of Nuiqsut and five national environmental groups that claimed the Bureau of Land Management’s environmental review of ConocoPhillips Alaska’s 2018-2019 North Slope winter exploration plan and other industrial activity was deficient.
The village and its co-plaintiffs - Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club - also asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting further exploration activities in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska until BLM redid its analysis.
Gleason upheld BLM’s environmental assessment, or EA, and subsequent Record of Decision, or ROD, in a 73-page decision, ruling the agency’s review did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, or the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, or ANILCA, as claimed by the tribal government and environmental groups.
Background included in order Gleason provided background in her order, explaining that in August 2018 ConocoPhillips submitted an oil and gas exploration and appraisal plan to BLM that described activities the company planned to conduct on its NPR-A leases during the 2018-2019 winter season.
The exploration would occur to the west of Nuiqsut and the GMT1 and GMT2 projects in the Bear Tooth unit near the confluence of Fish and Judy creeks (GMT stands for Great Mooses Tooth).
In support of its exploration plan, in October 2018 ConocoPhillips applied for permits to drill up to six exploration wells in or near the Bear Tooth unit and submitted an application for a right-of-way grant, requests that the judge said deviated from several of the 2012 integrated activity plan, environmental impact statement and best management practices.
BLM released a preliminary EA analyzing ConocoPhillips’ proposed operations on Nov. 9, 2018.
After the requisite public comment period closed, the agency published a final EA on Dec. 6, 2018, which proposed approving ConocoPhillips’ applications. The EA tiered to the 2012 IAP/EIS and the supplemental EISs for the GMT1 and GMT2 drill pads.
BLM then issued a finding of no significant impact, or FONSI, and released a ROD that, among other things, authorized ConocoPhillips to conduct exploration drilling and testing at up to eight well sites and build associated infrastructure, including ice roads, snow trails, ice pads, an airstrip, and temporary housing for its employees during the 2018-2019 winter season. ConocoPhillips completed operations authorized by the ROD on April 28, 2019.
Several other projects also occurred in northeast NPR-A during the 2018-2019 winter season. The largest of these was construction of the road and drill pad for the GMT2 development.
ConocoPhillips also obtained authorization to engage in geotechnical exploration in the area, in order to locate “potential gravel resources” to “support oil and gas development in the Bear Tooth unit.”
Nuiqsut close to projects Gleason’s order explained that Nuiqsut, population of around 500, is on the eastern border of NPR-A. In recent decades, several oil and gas development projects have been undertaken near Nuiqsut, which is “situated closer to current and foreseeable areas of petroleum development than any other community on the North Slope.”
This development has created conflicts with the community’s traditional ways of life.
A comment from the North Slope Borough on the GMT2 supplemental EIS explained: “Nuiqsut residents, more so than residents of other North Slope communities, and perhaps more so than any other Alaskan residents, have lived with a decades-long, ever-increasing, near constant level of frustration and apprehension as expanding oil and gas facilities and operations have impinged upon their traditional onshore and offshore subsistence harvest areas.”
Many of ConocoPhillips’ activities during the winter of 2018-2019 occurred in the general vicinity of Nuiqsut, the judge explained.
ConocoPhillips joins defense Nuiqsut and the environmental groups initiated their legal challenge on March 1, 2019, claiming that BLM’s environmental analysis of ConocoPhillips’ 2018-2019 winter exploration plan was deficient in several ways, and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, Gleason wrote.
Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on March 26, 2019, which contained five claims for relief that said, among other things, that BLM’s FONSI for the winter exploration program, and its associated decision not to prepare an EIS, failed to account for significant impacts to the Teshekpuk Caribou herd and subsistence activity and was thus in violation of NEPA and the Administrative Procedure Act, or APA.
The judge granted ConocoPhillips’ motion to intervene on April 10, 2019.
NPR-A consists of 23.6 million acres and is the nation’s largest single unit of public land. Established as the Naval Petroleum Reserve in 1923, the reserve was renamed and placed under the authority of the secretary of the Interior in 1976 by the National Petroleum Reserve Protection Act.
In 1980, the act was amended to direct the secretary of the Interior to “conduct an expeditious program of competitive leasing of oil and gas in the reserve.”
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