BLM working on NPR-A amendments

Kristen Nelson

The record of decision has been signed for the Bureau of Land Management’s portion of the Alpine satellite project, following completion of the environmental impact statement this fall, Henri Bisson, state director for Alaska for the Bureau of Land Management, said at the Resource Development Council’s annual conference, Nov. 18 in Anchorage. The Nov. 12 record of decision authorizes the first commercial oil development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

BLM is also in the process of amending its northeast NPR-A plan, he said. “It’s been a very challenging, rocky road, as we knew it would be.”

The public review process has been completed, he said, and the agency received 215,000 comments on the draft plan, probably 214,950 of which were similar, “and the rest of those were fairly extensive comments. We are looking at all these comments, we’re evaluating some of the most challenging comments that we got, and we’re considering our position in terms of where we want to go with the final (environmental impact statement).”

Bisson said BLM expects to issue the final plan in December, with the record of decision in January.

The agency’s goal is to have a lease sale next summer, he said.

“Virtually everything we’re doing right now results in some sort of litigation, and so we’re crossing our ‘ts’ and dotting our ‘is’ so that whatever it is we finally decide, we can defend, when we have to go to court.”