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Groups appeal IHA for Apache seismic Environmentalists, Native village say noise in Cook Inlet will threaten beluga whales protected under Endangered Species Act Alan Bailey Petroleum News
Three environmental groups and a Native tribal organization have filed a lawsuit in the federal District Court in Alaska, appealing the issue by the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, of an authorization to Apache Alaska Corp. for the accidental disturbance of marine mammals during offshore seismic survey operations in Alaska’s Cook Inlet.
NMFS issued the authorization, known as an incidental harassment authorization, or IHA, on April 30. The IHA allows the minor disturbance of small numbers of marine mammals without an infringement of the federal Marine Mammals Protection Act, provided that Apache implements a series of NMFS-mandated measures designed to avoid wildlife impacts.
The petitioners appealing the IHA consist of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Water Advocacy and the Native Village of Chickaloon.
EIS needed? The petitioners claim that, in issuing the IHA, NMFS did not conduct an adequate assessment of the potential environmental impacts of Apache’s planned surveys and that, as a consequence, the IHA contravenes both the Marine Mammals Protection Act and the National Environment Policy Act. NMFS should have found that the planned survey would have significant environmental impacts and should, therefore, have prepared an environmental impact statement for the proposed surveys, the petitioners say.
“To conduct these surveys, Apache will use airguns that produce some of the loudest underwater sounds short of dynamite,” wrote Rebecca Noblin of the Center for Biological Diversity in a May 15 court filing. “Day and night, for 160 days per year, Cook Inlet will be inundated with high-intensity sound pulses that are greater than 235 decibels at their source — billions of times more intense than the noise thresholds known to compromise foraging and other vital behavior in marine mammals.”
The seismic surveys are planned to take place within an area designated as critical habitat for the Cook Inlet beluga whale, a mammal sub-species designated as endangered under the terms of the Endangered Species Act. The petitioners say that after a required 60-day notice period they will add to the lawsuit a claim that the issuance of the IHA infringes the Endangered Species Act.
New exploration Apache wants to conduct its Cook Inlet seismic program as a first step in a multi-year effort to explore for oil and gas under the inlet. Although there is some existing Cook Inlet 2-D seismic data that was gathered a number of years ago, this old seismic is notoriously difficult to interpret in the challenging geology of Cook Inlet basin. Companies prefer to shoot modern, detailed 3-D seismic to find new, sometimes subtle exploration drilling targets in the basin.
Apache plans to gather its seismic over a three-year period using new nodal seismic recording equipment that avoids the need to lay cables in the survey area. Dwindling oil production from the Cook Inlet basin; high oil prices; pending shortages of natural gas supplies for Southcentral gas and power utilities; and state exploration incentives are all driving a resurgence of interest in Cook Inlet exploration.
Biological opinion As part of its statutory obligations under the Endangered Species Act, in February NMFS published a biological opinion on the potential impact of Apache’s seismic program on the Cook Inlet beluga whales. That opinion concluded that the seismic operations were not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the whales or adversely impact the whales’ critical habitat. NMFS said that Apache had committed to mitigation measures designed to minimize impacts on the whales and that, although some disturbance to the whales could be expected, this disturbance would be unlikely to have any impact on the whales’ survival or reproductive capacity.
In the IHA that is the subject of the lawsuit NMFS requires Apache to have protected species observers on its vessel and a suitably located shore-base station to watch out for marine mammals. A helicopter must be used to watch for marine mammals when seismic survey operations are in progress near a river mouth. Apache must also arrange to have an acoustic monitoring system for detecting marine mammal sounds in the water.
Mitigation measures The IHA spells out a series of steps to be taken if a marine mammal is observed or detected within specified zones around the airguns used in a survey. Those steps include, depending on the circumstances, altering the speed or course of the seismic vessel, or powering down the seismic sound source.
And Apache is required to submit weekly reports to NMFS, detailing the seismic operations that it has been conducting, specifying information about any marine mammals that have been observed, and describing the implementation and effectiveness of the mitigation measures used.
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