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Agency hit with flurry of petitions; five oil project permits delayed Paperwork from Joseph Akpik forces state Division of Governmental Coordination into extended ACMP review; House Oil and Gas sponsors bill removing right to petition against coastal zone consistency determinations Kristen Nelson PNA Editor-in-Chief
The agency which coordinates applications for oil and gas projects in Alaska’s coastal zones has been caught recently in a seeming blizzard of paperwork — and the Legislature appears ready to provide some weather control.
The Division of Governmental Coordination in the governor’s office manages the state’s coastal zone program. It solicits and responds to comments on projects under coastal zone review. Its regulations require that it give comments fair consideration in determining that a project is consistent with a district’s coastal management program.
Petitioner Joseph Akpik of Atqasuk, represented by Anchorage attorney Nancy Wainwright, argued in appeals of five recent coastal zone consistency determinations that his comments have not been fairly considered.
Akpik petitioned the Alaska Coastal Policy Council for review. The council heard and rejected one petition. Akpik withdrew one petition the day of the hearing. He withdrew two other petitions in advance of hearings. A fifth petition was rejected because it was not submitted in time.
The results did not change. Projects were permitted. But the process was slowed. Permit applications All the applications were by Phillips Alaska Inc. for North Slope projects.
One of Phillips’ applications, for its South Kuparuk exploration program (seven exploration wells), was not challenged: The project was in review for 61 days.
It was a different story for five applications on which Akpik commented, requiring responses from DGC: review times ranged from 93 to 110 days.
• Phillips’ drill site 3S development of its Palm discovery (drill pad, access road, power line, vertical support members and pipelines): Akpik’s petition was withdrawn Jan. 16, the day of the hearing. The project was in review for 106 days.
• Phillips’ Kuparuk Uplands (Grizzly) exploration program (three exploration wells on state lands): the council heard and dismissed the petition Jan. 23. The project was in review for 110 days.
• Phillips’ NPR-A exploration program (15 exploration wells on federal lands): DGC received a notice of petition Dec. 31; that petition was withdrawn effective Jan. 29. The project was in review for 100 days.
• Phillips’ Kuukpik lands exploration program (four exploration wells on Kuukpik Corp. lands): DGC rejected a petition Jan. 28 because it was not submitted in time. The project was in review for 93 days.
• Phillips’ Heavenly-Supercub exploration program (three exploration wells on state and private lands): A petition to the council was withdrawn Jan. 29: 95 days in review. House Bill 439 The Legislature is taking up a statutory fix. House Bill 439, introduced Feb. 15 by the House Special Committee on Oil and Gas, is titled: “An Act removing provisions providing an opportunity to petition for review of proposed consistency determinations under the Alaska coastal zone management program.” House Oil and Gas was scheduled to hear HB 439 Feb. 21.
The bill removes the petition step for individual consistency determinations.
The coastal resource district, a citizen of the coastal resource district or a state agency may still “file a petition showing that a district coastal management program is not being implemented, enforced, or complied with…” Lengthy comments, responses Akpik commented at length on the proposed projects and received lengthy responses.
For example, on Phillips’ NPR-A project, Akpik submitted an 18 page single-spaced comment letter. He received a 23 page response from DGC.
On Phillips’ Kuparuk Uplands (Grizzly) exploration project, Akpik submitted a 12 page single-spaced comment letter. He received a 15 page response from DGC.
After Akpik petitioned the council, saying his comments had not been given fair consideration, DGC prepared responses to his petitions — nine pages in the case of both of these petitions. DGC then prepared recommendations to the council (seven and nine pages for the two petitions above).
The recommendations addressed three things: eligibility of the petitioner; whether the coastal resource district cited is an affected district; the petition itself. Akpik commented at length on the proposed projects and received lengthy responses. The council’s Jan. 23 hearing was a week after Akpik withdrew his petition against Phillips’ Kuparuk drill site 3S development.
In the letter withdrawing the 3S petition, Akpik said Phillips requested him to withdraw it. Akpik told the council Jan. 23 (by phone) that he met with Phillips on the Kuparuk drill site 3S development project. He was pressured to withdraw his petition by people in Nuiqsut, he said, people who wanted to earn money from building ice roads.
Akpik told the council he is 55 years old and has been all over the slope and that the life of his people is a nomadic one, following fish and ice.
He said he believes the projects DGC has approved will disrupt the Colville River Delta and also said he filed his petition because he didn’t get information on the projects. He asked for better control of permits from the state of Alaska and asked what happened to the environmental justice promised by President Clinton. Fair or hard consideration DGC Director Pat Gavin, head of the council, told Akpik that the only action the council could take was to determine if his comments were fairly considered. Wainwright said that DGC didn’t give the comments a hard look, but simply told Akpik it considered them.
Glenn Gray, lead project analyst for oil and gas reviews for DGC, said “Kaye Laughlin (project review coordinator) and I worked hours and hours to respond” to each comment, even to comments for which regulations did not require a response. He characterized the comments from Akpik as a “cookie cutter approach” and said a Greenpeace letter had paragraphs identical to those in Akpik’s comments.
Wainwright said she forwarded Akpik documents from which he could compile his comments and that he may have inadvertently quoted from those documents.
Akpik told the council that he had never been forced to say anything by any organization. “Nobody is putting anything in my mouth,” he said. He said he was not affiliated with Greenpeace, Trustees for Alaska or any environmental group. Borough agrees with state Rex Okakok of the North Slope Borough said the borough fully agrees with DGC, finds the coordinating agency fully considered Akpik’s comments and requests that the council dismiss the petition. The borough, Okakok said, has met with people in the project area and talked with families that have been in the area. “We do extensive work,” he said, and asked: “What happens to that process?”
The council ruled Jan. 23 that Akpik had standing to petition, but ruled that DGC had fairly considered Akpik’s comments and dismissed the petition.
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