Summer work essential to LNG permits

Field work by crews for Alaska LNG in second summer of work on soils, archaeology, other data required for permitting project

Jeannette Lee

Researcher/writer for the Office of the Federal Coordinator

Armed with bug dope and bear spray, field crews hired by Alaska LNG spent their second consecutive summer making detailed records of soils, archaeology and other basic data needed for permitting and building a proposed multibillion-dollar liquefied natural gas project.

Alaska LNG plans to use the information in its permit applications to federal, state and local government agencies. The data on geology, topography, wildlife and past human activity will also help the joint venture make major engineering and investment decisions.

Early one August morning at a field camp in Trapper Creek, about 100 road miles north of Anchorage, a crew of archaeologists gathered under partly cloudy skies for a briefing on safety, weather and the day’s plan.

Field camp manager Matt Adkins from project contractor URS reported that a young moose had recently forced a driver to slam on his brakes. A helicopter flown by Alaska State Troopers on the hunt for a missing tourist would be sharing the skies with URS copters that day. Trumpeter swans were nesting and should be avoided.

Officially known as a “cultural resources crew,” this was one of 11 teams studying the southern half of the proposed 800-mile pipeline corridor during the 2014 summer field season. They deployed daily between the mining area of Livengood, north of Fairbanks, to Nikiski, the proposed site of the LNG plant and export tanker port on the Kenai Peninsula. Over five months, crews logged thousands of measurements on water quality, fish populations, soils, vegetation and more.

Alaska LNG chose to focus on the 400-mile southern section during the past two summer field seasons because the partners (ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, BP, TransCanada and the state of Alaska) initially knew less about it than other parts of the route.

The northern half, from the North Slope to Livengood, is less of a mystery. The sponsors have extensive survey data from construction in the 1970s of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, which carries North Slope oil to Valdez, and from previous plans to pipe natural gas out of the North Slope through Canada to the Lower 48 states. Those gas pipelines would have turned east toward Canada near Fairbanks, while the LNG project pipeline route heads south.

The Alaska Gasline Development Corp., the state-owned corporation participating in the LNG project, also has data on much of the proposed route and plans to share it with the other partners.

All told, there were six cultural crews, one fish crew, one hydrology crew, two wetlands crews and one contaminated-site crew collecting field data along the pipeline route in summer 2014. A hydrology crew also worked on the North Slope, the source of the project’s feed gas, and a field staff of three carried out land acquisitions and appraisals in Nikiski. An additional three civil survey crews helped the scientific teams reach and work at the various field targets. About 250 contract employees worked on the environmental, regulatory and land issues that were the focus of the summer 2014 field season.

The field work is part of what’s known as pre-front-end engineering and design, an essential, early stage in the life of a megaproject that helps proponents determine whether to build or not to build. Alaska LNG anticipates spending about $500 million for pre-FEED through 2015, $30 million of which was slated for summer field work in 2014.

Prepping for permitting

Led by crew chief Ben Lipke, an archaeologist with subcontractor Northern Land Use Research Alaska, they briefly trudged down an all-terrain vehicle trail before pushing into a green riot of birch, willow, ferns, shrubby alder and painfully prickly devils club. There were berries, too, but gathering them, as well as hunting or fishing, is not allowed.

The crew members all had wilderness survival training: what to do when encountering a bear or moose; how to survive a helicopter crash; how to make fire without matches.

Ray King, a wilderness safety specialist working for Anchorage-based Wild North Resources, kept watch with a 12-gauge shotgun, bear spray and an air horn as the team searched the proposed pipeline corridor for any signs that humans had used the area long ago.

In Alaska, that could mean ancient tools of stone, antler or bone, ceramics, cans, a 19th-century trapper’s cabin, or abandoned mines. On this particular day, with the team working in what they call “a low-probability area,” the big finds were telltale depressions in the forest floor where soil and gravel had been excavated to build the 43-year-old Parks Highway.

Plants had so completely recolonized the “borrow pits,” as they’re called in construction parlance, that to a non-specialist they looked like natural hollows in the landscape. Still, the team carefully measured and documented them.

“We try to collect as much mundane historical data as we can to add to the state historical record,” Lipke said.

The main purpose of such meticulous work is to provide baseline data for the project’s environmental impact statement, a basic requirement of the National Environmental Policy Act. The act is the legal cornerstone of U.S. environmental protections.

The EIS is how government agencies would show they both understand the environmental consequences of giving the project the go-ahead and have considered ways to lessen or altogether avoid them. In the case of Alaska LNG, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would prepare the EIS. Other agencies would then use the document in deciding whether to issue permits for the project.

Field data are building blocks for EIS

Alaska LNG is gathering data for 13 “resource reports,” required by FERC as building blocks for the EIS, containing information about how natural, cultural and socioeconomic environments could be altered for better or for worse over the life of the project. The reports would include data on air and water quality, wildlife numbers, earthquake faults, employment, road traffic patterns and archaeological sites.

Government agencies, led by FERC, would verify the information in the reports, request additional information from the sponsors as needed, and add some of their own data and work. Natural Resource Group, a third-party contractor selected and supervised by FERC but paid for by Alaska LNG, would help prepare the EIS.

Under Alaska LNG’s proposed schedule submitted to FERC Sept. 5, 2014, the sponsors would submit the final resource reports and a complete project application by September 2016. (The schedule is subject to change.)

Numerous federal agencies would refer to the EIS when preparing their own permits for the project. Permission to build bridges would come from the Coast Guard. Permits related to impacts on wildlife would come from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Dredging disposal permits would come from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

In addition to the go-ahead for construction and operation, the EIS is required for securing final export authority from the Department of Energy. That approval would allow Alaska LNG to send its product to countries that do not have a free-trade agreement with the United States, most notably much of Asia. Because granting export authority to Alaska LNG would qualify as a major federal action, the Energy Department needs to consider the EIS in its decision, just as FERC must consider the EIS in approving construction and operation.

The public would have opportunities to vet the draft resource reports and comment on the EIS.

Preserving the historical record

Like NEPA, the National Historic Preservation Act requires federal officials to stop, look and listen before making decisions that impact historic properties and the human environment, according to an NHPA handbook.

“The applicants will assist us by doing the legwork, collecting information, producing reports and making recommendations, but we as a federal agency are responsible for compliance with the NHPA,” said Laurie Boros, a staff archaeologist at FERC based in Washington, D.C.

Alaska’s State Historic Preservation Office at the Department of Natural Resources reviews any federal undertaking and consults with the federal agencies responsible for determining whether historic, prehistoric or archaeological sites may be “adversely affected.” Examples of adverse effects include: physical destruction of or damage to all or part of a property; alteration of a property; or removal of a property from its historic location.

With his crew constantly crisscrossing Alaska’s patchwork of state, federal, municipal and tribal lands, Lipke carries a bundle of access permits with him to every work site. On that August day, the crew planned to conduct “ped surveys” (short for “pedestrian surveys”) on Matanuska-Susitna Borough land and state land managed by the Department of Transportation and the Department of Natural Resources.

Lipke and his team thought they wouldn’t find much. There were no rivers, lookout points, good camping spots, rich food sources or other natural features that might have attracted people in the past. Local historic preservation officials had said they were not aware of any significant archaeological sites in the immediate area.

But the crew nonetheless prepared to dig atop a small rise that, because it was elevated, may have been used by people as a resting spot or lookout. The “shovel tests” began with crew members marking the sites of three test holes by tying pink ribbons to adjacent vegetation. The shovel tests could be spaced anywhere from 16 to 50 feet apart, Lipke said.

Eric Ball, a field technician working for Northern Land Use Research Alaska, used the edge of a shovel to trace a neat 20-inch square in the top layer of roots and moss, then dug it out and set it aside. Ball then hefted a shovelful of soil onto the screen of archaeologist Lori Hansen. She sifted it onto a blue tarp and examined the leftover rocks for signs of “lithic reduction,” that is, the telltale striations or other markings showing that some long-ago human fashioned the stone into a tool.

“You know it when you see it,” said Hansen, working this summer for Northern Land Use Research Alaska. Hansen spends the rest of the year as a collection assistant at the University of Alaska Museum of the North archaeology lab.

The crew beat on the screens to loosen the damp soil, which grew colder and colder with each shovelful. They dug through layers of volcanic soil, or “tephra,” until they hit sediments deposited by a glacier called “glacial till,” a sign the crews could stop digging because it corresponded with a time period predating human occupation in the area.

The bottom of each hole was a glimpse back to the end of the late Pleistocene about 14,000 years ago. None contained human artifacts.

“My folks think we’re out here finding diamond skulls and gold, but actually it’s more like this,” said Lia Digrappa, an archaeologist field technician with Northern Land Use Research Alaska. Digrappa gestured at the rocks, roots and wet soil the color of milk chocolate.

Soil colors paint geologic picture

The teams measured the thickness of each soil layer. They also made tiny piles of soil scraped from the different layers and matched them against the Munsell soil color chart, which is reminiscent of paint swatches.

Soil color reveals information about the amount of organic matter, moisture, drainage conditions and the prevalence of minerals, like iron, in an area. The data will ultimately go into an enormous central database and allow Alaska LNG to piece together a general characterization of the soils in the different regions where construction is planned.

Lipke jotted the results of the shovel tests on his waterproof notepad. He also entered the information in a field mapping and data collection program called ArcPad 10.2 on his tablet. At the end of the shovel tests, the crew filled in the holes, tamped the root and moss mat into place, and took photos of each test site.

“Then, we rinse and repeat,” said Lipke.

In a span of about four hours, the team dug seven test holes and measured the ATV trail and three borrow pits. They often cover 10 to 25 acres a day.

For the sake of project expedience, not finding any items or structures of historical or archaeological value at all is ideal, but if such objects are to be found, Alaska LNG would prefer to come across them before rather than during construction.

“We’d want to find it now because we’re developing the route and the engineers need to know how to tweak the alignment,” said Wes Cornelison, an Anchorage-based natural resources group manager with URS.

Alaska LNG plans to design its proposed 42-inch-diameter pipeline to safely go through permafrost, cut through forests and cross rivers. If structures, objects or sites qualifying as a historic property are unavoidable, FERC would assess possible adverse effects. Project sponsors are required to submit a plan to the federal government detailing their response should cultural artifacts be found while work is underway.

If there is an adverse effect, the agency would consult with state and/or tribal historic preservation officers and others, including Indian tribes, local governments, permit or license applicants, and members of the public to seek ways to avoid, minimize or mitigate the effects.

Alaska LNG would stake and/or put up exclusion fences around known archaeological sites.

The 2014 field work took place within a 300-foot-wide span that gives Alaska LNG wiggle room for planning the route. After identifying the final path of the pipeline, the sponsors would need to obtain right-of-way permission from property owners to use their land for construction and operations.

Alaska LNG senior project manager Steve Butt of ExxonMobil told the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., the state partner in the project, at a meeting in May 2014 that the companies are convinced they can build the $45 billion to $65 billion project without harming any resources. They need baseline data as part of their effort to prove that to regulators.

“We need to have a thorough understanding of the environment in which we will work so we can demonstrate conclusively that we have not adversely impacted it,” Butt said.

Returning to camp

Their work camp, at Mile 102 of the Parks Highway, was the former site of the Talkeetna Bluegrass Festival. In a gravel clearing where banjos once twanged, subcontractor Cruz Construction had built boxy modular housing that slept 35 people.

The lounge had a large flatscreen TV and couches. The cafeteria served comfort food like chocolate chip pancakes and bacon, but upon request from crew scientists there were also more nutritious options, like energy bars and upmarket, not-from-concentrate fruit juices.

Outside were baby blue picnic tables with umbrellas and one of the four helicopters URS used for aerial surveys. While clearly a hub of industry, signs of the site’s previous life as a rollicking concert venue were still obvious.

A sagging shack, labeled “SHOWERS,” was decorated with colorful stencils of flowers and crescent moons. A large, flower-bedecked cross presided over the wide gravel clearing. Propped against it was a sign whose message to rowdy festivalgoers could well be a slogan for one of the world’s many projects to move gas super-chilled to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit:

“Be Cool,” it said.

Editor’s note: This is a reprint from the Office of the Federal Coordinator, Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects, online at www.arcticgas.gov/summer-field-work-essential-alaska-lng-permits.