Draft EIS for possible inlet sale out

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has issued a draft environmental impact statement for a possible 2017 Cook Inlet oil and gas lease sale.

This is another step in a BOEM decision process on whether to hold a sale in federal waters in Cook Inlet.

A possible Cook Inlet sale is part of the Department of the Interior’s current 2012-17 five-year oil and gas lease sale schedule. The other Alaska sales on the schedule, for the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, were cancelled in 2015.

Cook Inlet was listed as a special interest sale, one for which BOEM gauges industry interest prior to proceeding. In March 2012 the agency issued a request for interest for Cook Inlet, and based on responses to that request decided to proceed with the pre-sale process for the sale, which was initially listed as a potential sale for 2016.

The agency said responses it received identified areas close to existing leases in state waters, avoiding “nearly all of the areas designated as critical habitat for the beluga whale and the northern sea otter ... the critical habitat for the Stellar sea lion and excludes much of the subsistence-use area for the Native villages of Nanwalek, Port Graham and Seldovia, as requested by the Native villages.”

A notice of intent to prepare an EIS was published in October 2014 and BOEM hosted scoping meetings in communities around Cook Inlet.

BOEM said it would publish a notice of availability of the draft EIS in the Federal Register July 22, which opens a 45-day public comment period closing Sept. 6.

Public meetings, all from 5-8 p.m., are scheduled for the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage on Aug. 15, the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Island and Ocean Visitor Center in Homer on Aug. 17 and the Alaska National Guard Federal Armory in Kenai/Soldotna on Aug. 19.

The draft EIS and directions for public comments online are available at www.boem.gov/ak244/.

- PETROLEUM NEWS