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Obama puts Bristol Bay off limits for federal oil and gas leasing
President Barack Obama put federal Bristol Bay waters off limits to oil and gas leasing Dec. 16, extending indefinitely a temporary withdrawal he made in 2010 which would have expired in 2017.
In a release the White House said the “action safeguards one of the nation’s most productive fisheries and preserves an ecologically rich area of the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska that is vital to the commercial fishing and tourism economy and to Alaska Native communities.”
The statement said the decision “builds on decades of local efforts to protect Bristol Bay from oil and gas development” by Alaska Native tribes and organizations and local seafood and tourism businesses.
Bristol Bay is part of the 32.5 million acre North Aleutian Planning Area, a portion of which was leased in the mid-1980s but never developed. The administration of President George W. Bush set in motion a new lease sale for 2011 covering some 5.6 million acres.
President Obama temporarily withdrew the Bristol Bay area from oil and gas development using his authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
Murkowski not objecting “Given the lack of interest by industry and the public divide over allowing oil and gas exploration in this area, I am not objecting to this decision at this time,” Alaska’s senior senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, said in a Dec. 16 statement.
“I think we all recognize that these are some of our state’s richest fishing waters. What I do not understand is why this decision could not be made within the context of the administration’s upcoming plan for offshore leasing - or at least announced at the same time.”
The Department of the Interior is expected to release its next five-year plan for outer continental shelf development within the next few weeks.
One offshore well has been drilled in the area, a stratigraphic test well, the 1983 ARCO North Aleutian COST Well No. 1. That well, drilled offshore Port Moller in one of the deepest parts of the Bristol Bay basin, reached 17,000 feet and encountered rock with thermal maturities within the oil window.
A 2006 assessment by the Department of the Interior estimated a mean technically recoverable gas resource of 8.6 trillion cubic feet and an oil and gas condensate resource of 753 million barrels.
Onshore vs. offshore drilling Responses to the state of Alaska’s Alaska Peninsula areawide lease sale program indicate that, as with the North Slope, local sentiment favors onshore over offshore drilling.
The state made land in the Alaska Peninsula area available for oil and gas leasing in 1960 and again in 1968, and although a few areas were leased, no wells were drilled.
When the state proposed areawide leasing for the Alaska Peninsula - and held its first areawide sale there in 2005 - local support favored onshore over offshore leasing, with onshore oil and gas development holding out the possibility of jobs while offshore drilling raised the fear of damage to the area’s valuable fishery.
It was the fishery on which the Obama administration appeared to focus.
“With its pristine waters, rich fisheries and strong tourist economy, Bristol Bay is a treasure that should be off limits for oil and gas development,” Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said in a Dec. 16 statement. She also said the action “caps decades of work from the community to protect the region’s economic and cultural heritage.”
United Tribes of Bristol Bay spoke to some of the same issues. In a Dec. 16 statement Robert Heyano, the organization’s president, said the decision acknowledged “the immense cultural and economic value of Bristol Bay and recognition of our country’s last great wild salmon resource is welcomed news that many of us have fought for decades to hear. We appreciate that (President Obama) has listened to Alaska Natives and has secured Bristol Bay’s future as a national treasure.”
- Kristen Nelson
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