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Communities challenge impact of Chukchi drilling Borough Mayor Ahmaogak says offshore development will disrupt area’s traditional way of life without bringing any benefits to those who live there Alan Bailey Petroleum News Contributing Writer
George Ahmaogak, mayor of the North Slope Borough, told Petroleum News that the communities and organizations on the North Slope oppose any offshore exploration, development or production. Ahmaogak said that developments in offshore areas such as the Chukchi Sea would cause problems for the communities without bringing any benefits or mitigation.
“(The communities) would prefer any exploration or production to be on land versus offshore because of ... enormous risk in ice-infested waters,” Ahmaogak said.
Ahmaogak voiced concerns about the ability to clean up an oil spill in the icy water and skepticism about the oil spill risk model that the U.S. Minerals Management Service uses for the Chukchi.
“We see that as a potential threat to our subsistence resources that we depend on in the ocean and the Chukchi Sea is a major part of the migration of a lot of the marine mammals that we depend on,” he said.
Other concerns include the impact of exploration and development activities on bowhead whale migration. There needs to be mitigation for the cost of disruption to the whale hunting, Ahmaogak said. Working with the communities John Goll, regional director of the Mineral Management Service Alaska region, said that the MMS has been working with the local communities to address their concerns.
“Our commitment is that we will work as much as we can with the communities,” Goll said. “Our job is to see if we can provide reasonable access for companies and if the companies go up there we want to make sure that those companies operate safely.”
Goll said that several years ago offshore seismic operations had disturbed the whale hunting. Since then the MMS has included within all leases a requirement that companies develop plans that ensure that there will not be any unreasonable conflict with whale hunts.
“The companies have to consult with the North Slope Borough and the Alaska Whaling Commission,” Goll said, “and from what has happened over the last five, six, seven years everything has essentially worked well.”
Ahmaogak agrees that these arrangements have resulted in progress.
“We have made a lot of substantial improvements within the whole process,” he said.
MMS has also removed from the Chukchi planning area the zone close to shore where the whales migrate. In the Beaufort Sea the MMS has removed the Barrow whaling areas from lease sales.
However, Ahmaogak doesn’t think that it’s possible to assess the impact on the whales until MMS has set the scope of any Chukchi leasing.
“It’s premature to say that they’re taking whales and their migrations and everything into consideration when they haven’t even done the scoping process or the EIS,” Ahmaogak said. Oil spill risks The North Slope Borough’s concerns about the MMS oil spill risk model center on the model’s use of data from the Gulf of Mexico.
“These are Arctic conditions up here and you don’t use a data set from the Gulf of Mexico to make a risk model to be used in the leasing process,” Ahmaogak said.
The borough’s own science advisory committee stated that the MMS model fell well short of taking account of Arctic conditions, Ahmaogak said.
Goll said that the MMS believes that its oil spill risk model is adequate. However, the agency is re-assessing the risks using more data from the North Slope.
Ahmaogak also questioned the existence of technology or equipment to clean up oil in sea ice, particularly in multi-year ice, circulating ice pack or broken ice.
“There is no technology or equipment ... and infrastructure to clean up an oil spill in these ice-infested waters,” Ahmaogak said.
However, Christy Bohl, oil spill contingency program manager for MMS, said that industry has made significant progress in addressing oil spill cleanup in icy conditions.
“The industry has been doing a great deal of research and development with their tactics,” Bohl said, (and) “... the tools are in the toolbox to respond to that oil.”
Bohl said that industry has developed techniques that involve using the ice to gather and concentrate the oil. Skimmers or in-situ burning can then remove the oil from the water.
Detection systems can give early warning of hydrocarbons accumulating under the ice. However, the MMS is funding research to improve this detection technology, Bohl said. Mitigation for the impacts The North Slope communities don’t anticipate any benefits from offshore oil and gas development, Ahmaogak said. The borough would not be able to levy property taxes on facilities more than three miles offshore and would not receive royalties from offshore production.
Ahmaogak doesn’t think that offshore production facilities would bring much local employment to the North Slope. Nor does he anticipate any financial compensation coming from offshore development plans.
“We’re paying for those adverse impacts at our own local level,” Ahmaogak said. “There’s no money coming from the federal government, no money coming from the lease sales, no money coming from the state, a little coming from the Permanent Fund, no money coming from the oil and gas industry.”
Goll said that the question of impact assistance from offshore developments has arisen in several states with coastal communities. Under current laws the state receives 27 percent of government income from developments between three and six miles from the coast. Neither the state nor local communities receives any income from developments more than six miles offshore.
The introduction of impact assistance or revenue sharing for coastal communities would require legislation by Congress, Goll said. Revenue sharing would involve channeling some offshore revenues to the states and local communities rather than have all of the money go to the federal government.
There have been several proposals in the past for revenue sharing, including a proposal in the recent energy bill, Goll said.
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