Opening it all

Preferred alternative in final EIS offers entire ANWR 1002 area to leasing

Kay Cashman

Petroleum News

The U.S. Interior Department chose option B as a preferred alternative in the final environmental impact statement for the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program it released Sept. 12. Option B will open just the entire 1.57 million-acre ANWR 1002 area to oil and gas leasing, an official with Interior’s Bureau of Land Management said in a conference call just before the EIS was made public.

The 1002 portion of the 19 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a narrow strip of coastline that was set aside for potential development by Congress because of its hydrocarbon rich geology.

“This alternative offers the opportunity to lease the entire program area while providing protections for the many important resources and uses identified through scoping and public comments within the program area,” Chad Padgett, Alaska state director for BLM, said in an introductory message in the final EIS.

B is the least restrictive of the four alternatives analyzed by BLM and several cooperating federal and state agencies. It requires only 359,400 acres to be designated for no surface occupancy restrictions. Option A, the no-action alternative was rejected because it would not have allowed any leasing and so it was out of compliance with the 2017 federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that mandated oil and gas leasing in the ANWR 1002 area.

Release of the final EIS starts the clock for a lease sale that the Trump administration wants held before the end of the year. BLM will next prepare a Record of Decision, which can be published 30 days after the official Notice of Availability for the final EIS is published in the Federal Register.

That accomplished, BLM will be able to schedule the actual lease sale.

Responses vary

The most critical of the agencies that evaluated the draft EIS last October and was part of the group that put together the final EIS with BLM was the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Included in Interior’s press release about the final EIS was a statement from Fish and Wildlife’s principal deputy director, Margaret Everson, who was quoted as saying “A large and diverse team including Tribes, partners, the state of Alaska and experts from across the Service worked with BLM on the range of alternatives contained in the EIS, as well as the protective mitigation measures that would apply to oil and gas activities in this unique area. The team’s work forms the scientific and conservation foundation that will protect high-value wildlife habitats and important uses in this area, while advancing the President’s agenda on energy independence.”

Representatives of the regional Native corporation for the ANWR 1002 area, Arctic Slope Regional Corp., made the following comment Sept. 12: “We are encouraged the Department heard our voices and incorporated our concerns into the final EIS. We look forward to a successful lease sale and strongly believe exploration and production can incorporate cultural and environmental protections while providing for the nation’s energy security. This economic driver will provide opportunities for our people and our region, as well as the rest of the state and nation for years to come.”

The 1002 area is part of the North Slope Borough, and borough mayor, Harry K. Brower Jr., issued this statement Sept. 12: “We applaud the Department’s work to ensure that all development companies put in place the best practices and mitigation standards because we all have to make sure that responsible development will protect the environment, protect the wildlife, protect the land. That is our responsibility and we owe that to future generations.”

All three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation welcomed the release of the final EIS and indicated support for preferred alternative B.

Congressman Don Young, R-Alaska, has worked the longest on getting the coastal plain opened for oil and gas leasing.

“Alaskans are committed environmental stewards,” Young said, “and they know how to balance environmental protection and resource development - we did it in Prudhoe Bay and we’ll do it again in ANWR. I want to thank President Trump and his administration, particularly Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, the former Assistant Secretary (Joe Balash), and Alaska BLM State Director Chad Padgett for their tireless work in completing this EIS and getting us closer to fully-realized resource development in the 1002 area of ANWR.”

December lease sales

Also, that month and possibly in conjunction with the 1002 sale if it’s not held up by environmental lawsuits, BLM will offer more leases on the western North Slope in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

As reported in the Aug. 18 edition of Petroleum News, Interior will publish a draft environmental impact statement in October on changes to its land management plan for NPR-A, Padgett said in an Aug. 13 briefing on BLM’s Alaska activities.

The land plan, called the NPR-A Integrated Activity Plan, will revise the 2013 plan by former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that greatly expanded areas restricted from leasing and drilling near coastal areas of the petroleum reserve that were considered to have high oil potential by state and federal geologists.

One of the purposes of the revised plan will be to revisit the expanded protected areas set by Salazar and to revisit the boundaries of coastal areas specified to be off limits in the 1975 Naval Petroleum Reserve Production Act, BLM’s Alaska spokeswoman Lesli Ellis-Wouters said.

“The 1975 act never defined the boundaries of the protected areas,” along the coast, Ellis-Wouters said.

In practice BLM has withheld areas of sensitive wetlands, such as around Teshekpuk Lake, from leasing or at least from surface entry over the years, but industry and state officials objected to Salazar’s order expanding the protected zone south, away from the coast, into areas of upland tundra not particularly sensitive but which still hold good potential for discoveries.

“The effect of Salazar’s action was to put the best acreage off limits,” said Richard Garrard, an industry exploration geologist familiar with the NPR-A, in past interviews.

A draft EIS is typically followed by the final EIS and the record of decision issued within 30 days of the final document. The Record of Decision then allows Interior to publish the revised plan.

While this will be too late to include areas of high potential in the December federal lease sale, the revised plan would allow the acreage to be in a 2020 lease sale.