NMFS issues Shell Chukchi drilling IHA

Another piece of Shell’s permitting scheme for its planned 2015 Chukchi Sea drilling program slotted into place on June 22 when the National Marine Fisheries Service announced that it is issuing an incidental harassment authorization. The authorization allows the unintended minor disturbance of whales, porpoises and some other marine mammals without an infringement of the Marine Mammals Protection Act. The Fisheries Service issued a proposed authorization in March and, having responded to public comments on that document, has now officially issued a final version.

The authorization says that, because drilling and related activities do not create sound at high enough levels to impact the hearing of marine mammals, shutdowns of these activities will not be required to mitigate the impacts of the activities on the animals. However, trained observers on vessels in the drilling fleet will observe the responses of animals to the activities. Shell does plan some vertical seismic profiling of the rock strata penetrated by wells. With airguns being used for this profiling, the activity will require marine mammal exclusion zones and ramp-up and ramp-down procedures to avoid any potential injury to animals.

An array of autonomous acoustic recorders will also be deployed during the exploration season, to monitor sound levels in the water across the region, including marine mammal vocalization patterns and the sounds associated with exploration drilling, the Fisheries Service says. The Fisheries Service also says that Shell plans to conduct aerial photographic surveys of marine mammal distributions, with the photographic technique putting fewer people at risk in offshore aerial operations than manned surveys. Nearshore aerial surveys will be conducted when adverse weather inhibits offshore surveys.

The Fisheries Service says that it has prepared an environmental assessment for the incidental harassment authorization and has made a determination of no significant environmental impact.

- Alan Bailey