Permanent Bristol Bay drilling ban urged

A group of environmental, commercial fishing and Native village organizations are pushing for permanent protection of Alaska’s Bristol Bay from oil and gas exploration.

The Fish Basket Coalition is urging people to sign an online open letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Alaska’s congressional delegation.

“Bristol Bay is a national treasure,” the letter says. “Offshore drilling amid the region’s rich waters would threaten more than 40% of the nation’s wild fish catch, including the largest runs of wild sockeye salmon on Earth, and the jobs, livelihoods, Native traditions and communities they support. Bristol Bay’s world-class fisheries are too valuable to risk for the short-term benefits that offshore oil and gas development would provide.” Salazar himself has called Bristol Bay a national treasure, and in March 2010 he and the Obama administration nixed plans for oil and gas leasing in what’s known as the North Aleutian basin until mid-2017.

In an “action alert” distributed by email on Jan. 9, the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, a founding member of the Fish Basket Coalition, urged people to sign the open letter.

“For decades the oil industry has eyed small hydrocarbon deposits beneath Bristol Bay,” the action alert said. It said the “push to drill” will continue unless protection is put in place beyond 2017.

In recent years, Shell has shown interest in exploring for and developing North Aleutian basin natural gas.

The government in 1988 opened high bids totaling $95 million for leases in the basin. Some years later, however, the leases would be bought back as part of the fallout from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

A 2006 Interior Department assessment of the North Aleutian basin estimated a mean technically recoverable gas resource of 8.6 trillion cubic feet, and an oil and gas condensate resource of 753 million barrels.

—Wesley Loy