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MMS, EPA disagree on Liberty
Kristen Nelson PNA Editor-in-Chief
The final EIS for BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.’s Liberty project has been issued, but with the project deferred as BP revises its development plan and agencies in disagreement on how the project should be built, this EIS could be used, modified or replaced once BP submits final plans.
The Minerals Management Service published the final environmental impact statement May 17.
BP announced in January that it was putting the project on hold, and MMS said BP told it and other affected agencies in a March 5 letter that pending completion of project re-evaluation, agencies should consider submitted permit applications incomplete. BP recommended that processing of permit applications be suspended.
MMS said BP also indicated informally in March that submission of a modified development and production plan for Liberty could take six months or more.
MMS said it decided to publish this final EIS because it includes substantial changes made in response to comments on the draft EIS and documents the extensive analysis done for the project. MMS also expects to use it as a reference document for future projects.
When BP submits a revised project, MMS said, the agencies will evaluate whether to use this final EIS as the primary National Environmental Policy Act documentation, issue a supplemental EIS or issue new environmental documentation. Liberty in Beaufort Sea BP proposed to develop the Liberty Prospect from a gravel island located about 5 miles from shore in the Beaufort Sea 20 miles east of Prudhoe Bay, and about 8 miles east of its Endicott development. The proposal includes a self-contained offshore drilling and production facility on a man-made gravel island and a sub-sea and onshore pipeline that would connect to the Badami Oil Pipeline. BP estimates that the Liberty Prospect contains 120 million barrels of recoverable oil. The state of Alaska would share 27 percent of the federal royalties.Agencies disagree on pipeline design The Corps is prohibited by its regulations from identifying an agency-preferred alternative. MMS and EPA are required by NEPA Council on Environmental Quality regulations to do so.
MMS said its agency-preferred alternative is identical to the BP proposal. The EPA favors several changes in the proposal.
MMS and EPA concur that Liberty Island makes the best site for the project and also concur with BP’s proposed pipeline route.
The agencies disagree, however on pipeline design.
MMS said it concluded that single-wall pipeline “is the best and safest technology for the Liberty development project. The single-wall pipeline can be inspected and monitored by multiple and redundant methods over the life of the project.”
A pipe-in-pipe system, MMS said, “would be less likely to release oil to the environment but more likely to require repair. The ability to monitor the integrity of the inner pipe by inline inspection tools is reduced because of interference from the outer pipe.”
The EPA, on the other hand, “believes that the use of the pipe-in-pipe system minimizes the risk when compared to the proposed single-wall system,”increasing protection from external forces and providing oil-containment capacity in the event of failure of the internal pipe. The pipe-in-pipe design increases overall project costs by 7 percent. Disagreement on island protection MMS prefers concrete block protection on the lower island and gravel bag protection on the upper island. These gravel bags, however, would be made of polyester which would not float in the water. Previous bags were made of polyethylene, MMS said, and if damaged they floated in the water, creating a hazard to boats and boat motors.
The EPA wants steel sheetpile for island protection, the method BP used at Northstar. And while the proposed polyester bags would not float, EPA said it was concerned that torn bags could wash into the Beaufort Sea.
“While it is unlikely for the bags to be washed into the Beaufort Sea, the use of steel sheetpile entirely eliminates the chances of this happening,”the EPA said.
Sheetpile increases the overall project cost by 2 percent and the maximum island footprint by 1 percent.
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