|
Questions over NMFS Arctic offshore EIS Public responds to policy document that would place limits on oil and gas exploration activities in the Alaska Arctic offshore Alan Bailey Petroleum News
A National Marine Fisheries Service draft environmental impact statement, or EIS, for Arctic offshore oil and gas exploration triggered a variety of comments during a public meeting that the agency held in Anchorage, Alaska, on Feb. 13. The EIS covers geophysical surveying on the Alaska Arctic outer continental shelf and exploration drilling in both federal and state waters offshore Arctic Alaska.
The EIS would impose environmental mitigation measures in the event of an Arctic offshore explorer applying for a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, permit for geophysical exploration or for a National Marine Fisheries Service approval for the unintended harassment of marine mammals during seismic surveying and exploration drilling operations.
Future policies The National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, says that the EIS will establish policies for exploration permitting and incidental harassment authorizations in the years 2012 to 2017. The draft EIS does not state a preferred alternative for mitigation measures, but lists five potential alternatives for permitting policies. NMFS anticipates selecting a preferred alternative using information gleaned from public comments.
One alternative is no action, in which no seismic permits or harassment authorizations would be issued, in effect banning exploration from taking place. The other alternatives would place limits on the number of seismic surveys and exploration drilling programs that could be conducted in any one year. Annual limits on seismic surveys would range from four to six surveys in the Beaufort Sea and three to five surveys in the Chukchi Sea. Limits on exploration drilling would range from one to two programs in the Beaufort Sea and also one to two programs in the Chukchi Sea. One alternative also envisages scheduled closures to exploration in certain especially sensitive areas. And one alternative would require the use of new technologies to reduce seismic noise.
Multiple agencies An EIS is a document prepared under the terms of the National Environmental Policy Act, normally in response to some action that may have a significant environmental impact and that involves the federal government in some way. The government agency with primary involvement in the action generally takes the lead position in preparing the EIS, with other federal, state or local government agencies potentially becoming “cooperating agencies.” The fact that an agency is a cooperating agency simply means that the agency is formally involved in the EIS development.
In the case of this particular EIS, NMFS is the lead agency, with BOEM and the North Slope Borough acting as cooperating agencies. The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission has also been a participant in the EIS preparation. Michael Payne from NMFS told attendees at the Anchorage public meeting that the Environmental Protection Agency had also been involved. The EIS team has also conducted many government-to-government meetings with Native councils and tribal governments on the North Slope, Payne said.
State not involved Candace Nachman, the project manager for the EIS development, said that the State of Alaska had not been involved.
“They were not asked and did not ask (for involvement),” Nachman said.
In December Gov. Parnell’s office told Petroleum News that state agencies were reviewing the draft EIS.
Payne said that the draft EIS includes an assessment of the cumulative impacts of multiple offshore activities, rather than just the impact of a single action. And the EIS includes some new impact mitigation techniques and new environmental monitoring methods, in addition to mitigation measures that have been used in the past.
“We are hopeful that this document will stand alone and will be able to be used in future permit actions, at least until 2017, 2018, assuming that we get it published this year,” Payne said.
Environmental groups: no action During the public comment section of the Anchorage meeting several people from environmental organizations urged NMFS to adopt the “no action” alternative in the EIS. These people cited the sensitivity of marine mammals to industrial noise and a lack of sufficient information about the marine wildlife as reasons to ban offshore exploration. The potential for an offshore oil spill is also a significant concern, several people said.
One person said that it is absurd to continue to explore for more oil and gas when mankind’s use of oil and oil products is driving the Earth towards a mass wildlife extinction.
A representative from the Alaska Inter Tribal Council also argued for the no-action alternative, saying that subsistence rights needed to be protected, too little is known about the offshore environment and that there is no means of cleaning up an offshore oil spill. This person and some others also questioned why the scope of the EIS had not been extended to include the Cook Inlet.
Industry concerns Industry representatives questioned why the EIS was being prepared and expressed concern that, under any of the alternatives presented in the document, the number of drilling programs allowed per year would be substantially less than the number of companies operating offshore leases, thus inevitably preventing some companies from exploring their leases.
One industry commenter said that the alternatives presented in the EIS overestimate the number of seismic surveys that are likely to be needed in coming years, while significantly underestimating the amount of exploration drilling needed. Moreover, incidental harassment authorizations issued by NMFS under the Marine Mammals Protection Act for offshore activities already limit marine mammal encounters to negligible impacts, a level of impact below the threshold that would require an EIS under the National Environmental Policy Act, this commenter said. Moreover the new EIS duplicates and complicates work already done in previous environmental impact statements covering actions such as lease sales and company exploration plans, he said.
Exploration viability? Industry commenters also said that alternatives in the EIS include timing restrictions that would substantially reduce the length of already short exploration seasons in the Arctic offshore, thus raising questions over the viability of exploration for companies that have already purchased offshore leases. And oil exploration in the Alaska Arctic offshore presents a major economic opportunity for both Alaska and the United States, commenters said.
Comments on the draft EIS are required by Feb. 28. The EIS is on the NMFS website at www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/permits/eis/arctic.htm
| 