National Research Council committee begins work on North Slope study

Committee on Cumulative Environmental Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska’s North Slope will study available information, identify data gaps

Kristen Nelson

PNA Editor-in-Chief

Members of the National Research Council’s Committee on Cumulative Environmental Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska’s North Slope gathered for the committee’s first meeting in Anchorage in early January.

The 16-member committee is funded by Congress based on a budget request from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Marsha Combs, director for the Alaska operations office of the EPA, told the committee that the EPA is concerned that America’s Arctic is at risk. It is, Combs said, one of the last places in the United States where land is used for survival — and is also an area far behind in research. Good science will help us make informed decisions, she said.

“This study can help bring us together toward a better understanding of the effects we’re having and identify impacts” and help agencies regulate living and working in America’s Arctic, said Ted Rockwell, an environmental scientist with EPA and the agency’s lead for the project.

The study will also identify limitations in data, he said, allowing agencies to prioritize limited budgets and focus on information that needs to be gathered.

Most important, the committee will create an informed group of stakeholders who can work together and be used for future opportunities, Rockwell said.

Committee Chairman Gordon Orians, professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Washington, said the committee will be working on background and assessment and specifically noted that it was not the committee’s role to make political recommendations.

Council’s role advisory

Panel members are “distinguished volunteers” who receive no pay for their work, Policansky said, although the council does try to cover expenses.

There are six Alaskans on the committee: Tom Albert of the North Slope Borough’s Department of Wildlife Management; Ray Cameron, Craig Gerlach, Lloyd Lowry and Skip Walker of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and David Hite, an Anchorage geological consultant.

Other committee members are from Washington, Louisiana, California, Texas, Canada and New York. The majority are with universities, government agencies or consulting or research firms. Council membership includes a senior policy analyst with the National Resources Defense Council.

The council attempts to make sure that a committee’s membership does not reflect a single bias, Policansky said: “We hope you’ll look at the group and say, ‘I wonder what they’ll come up with?’ “

Information gathering meetings are open to the public but committee deliberations are closed and reports undergo external review before they are released.

The committee must achieve consensus, and diverse groups are usually able to write consensus reports, Policansky said. Typically it takes the whole process to figure out what the committee’s view is, he said.

The report needs to be drafted by early 2002 to meet the publication schedule of July 2002. It will receive extensive review before it is published.

Where to go to collect data

The group’s next meeting in April covers a number of these: The committee will meet in open session in Fairbanks April 2; in Barrow and Nuiqsut in open session April 3-4; and in closed session in Anchorage April 5. A flight over North Slope oil fields is planned.

A July meeting is next on the schedule so the committee can see the Prudhoe Bay facilities in the summer and also visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Tom Albert of the North Slope Borough encouraged the committee to visit Arctic Village. Those people feel very threatened, he said, and don’t have the resource people that the borough does to participate. There was some discussion of getting the committee to Arctic Village or sending just a portion of the committee, but that trip did not make it onto the short list.

Information gathering

Maps of the North Slope were a particular concern and an attempt will be made by National Research Council staff to provide maps. Members asked for comprehensive maps including such things as vegetation, wetlands, habitats, roads, gravel pads and industrialized areas.

There is no continuous map across the North Slope, the committee was told, and while most of the oil fields have been mapped and digitized there are holes between the fields. The maps that do exist are not consistent, because based on when an area was mapped, classifications are different because they have evolved over time.

Discussion about how the committee could best achieve its task included the need for an overview of the problem and calls for including some detail where specific information is available.

Some closing discussion highlighted the complexity of the committee’s task:

A member suggested that because different activities last for different lengths of time, a three-dimensional matrix of activities associated with oil and gas activity, potential effects such as on caribou and the duration of the activity might be useful. The matrix would help the committee determine which activities matter the most.

The idea was quickly expanded with the suggestion that the spatial extent of an activity could be as important as the temporal effect, with large temporal events likely to also be important spatially.