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Enviros challenge legality of ConocoPhillips NPR-A exploration
Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
On Dec. 11 three environmental organizations filed a complaint in the federal District Court in Alaska, claiming that the Bureau of Land Management's recent approval of ConocoPhillips' new plan for exploration in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska was illegal. The organizations claim that potential environmental impacts from the planned exploration activities are likely to cause long term harm to soils, vegetation and wildlife in the reserve, including population-level impacts to Teshekpuk Caribou Herd that uses the region within which the exploration is planned to take place.
"These actions by the same groups that have historically used legal maneuvers to delay exploration and development in the Petroleum Reserve jeopardize hundreds of local jobs and add unnecessary risk to investment in Alaska," Dennis Nuss, ConocoPhillips director of media relations, has told Petroleum News. "We remain confident in the robustness of our plan and BLM's permits and look forward to completing our work within Alaska's limited winter exploration season."
Major exploration program ConocoPhillips' approved plan involves a major exploration program in the NPR-A in the coming year. Activities include the drilling of four exploration wells, three of them near the Willow field, together with three-dimensional seismic surveying over an area of 300 square miles, with a full project area of 467 square miles, south of the Bear Tooth unit and west of the Colville River.
Drilling will entail the construction of ice pads and about 58 miles of ice roads.
The plaintiffs claim that the required operating procedures that BLM is mandating for the exploration activities are inadequate to ensure the environmental protections mandated by the National Petroleum Reserves Production Act, the 1976 federal statute that assigned BLM oversight of NPR-A.
Limited time for comments The plaintiffs claim that neither BLM nor ConocoPhillips had responded to requests for documentation relating to the exploration program. And, when on Nov. 10 BLM published its draft environmental assessment for the exploration, the agency only allowed one week for public comments.
The agency published its final environmental assessment on Nov. 26, with a finding of no new significant impacts, the plaintiffs said.
The NPR-A contains defined special areas, such as the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area around the Teshekpuk Lake, where there are environmental factors that require particular protection. The plaintiffs said that three of the proposed drill sites would be located within the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area.
Impacts of new activities The plaintiffs argue that environmental impacts from new seismic exploration can take decades to recover and that the impacts of new activities outpace the recovery of impacts from the past.
But, overall, BLM in its final environmental assessment had concluded that the planned exploration activities would only minimally impact environmental resources, the plaintiffs wrote.
The plaintiffs have asked the court to vacate BLM's approval of the exploration plan and declare that, in approving the plan, BLM officials have violated the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the Administrative Procedures Act.
- Alan Bailey
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