Court Blocks Alaska Offshore Drilling on Environmental Grounds

The three judge panel ruled that the Bush-era Department of the Interior failed to consider the impact of drilling on the ocean and on marine life before it began the process in August 2005 of expanding an oil and gas leasing program in the Beaufort, Bering, and Chukchi seas.

The court ordered the Interior Department, headed currently by Secretary Ken Salazar, to analyze the proposed leasing areas to determine the risk of environmental damage before moving ahead with lease sales.

The judges sided with the Center for Biological Diversity, Alaska Wilderness League, Pacific Environment and the Native Village of Point Hope, who argued that the 2007-2012 Outer Continental Shelf Leasing Program would turn sensitive areas into polluted industrial zones.

The Native Village of Point Hope on the shore of the Chukchi Sea (Photo by Aqvaluq Photography)

Native Village of Point Hope President Caroline Cannon told ENS, "It's a victory and we thank God that we're able to see this day come."

Calling the decision "an historical event for the tribe and our tribal members," Cannon said, "Drilling will cause irreversible damage to our ocean and sea animals and would severely impact our cultural traditions. It would be committing cultural genocide. Drilling would pose an intimate threat to our existence."

Cannon said the tribe looks forward to working with Secretary Salazar "to protect our waters."

"Our culture and traditions give us our identify and pride as Inupiaqs," she said. "We are standing on the graves of our ancestors who fought for our way of life. We hope our children and grandchildren do not have to fight the same issues."

The leasing program, approved by then Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne last summer, schedules 21 lease sales across the nation - 12 sales for the Gulf of Mexico, eight off the coast of Alaska, and one off the coast of Virginia. Five of the proposed lease sales would have been in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

"This decision requires the federal government to vacate the five year plan which means that four proposed sales in the Arctic Ocean and one in Bristol Bay will no longer be allowed to move forward," said Betsy Beardsley, environmental justice program director with the Alaska Wilderness League.

Polar bear in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Photo by Ken Whitten courtesy The Wilderness Society)

"We felt that the plan was severely flawed," said Beardsley. "It put a rush on development in areas that are so important to Alaska's fisheries and the subsistance way of life in the Arctic. These are some of the most biologically important areas in the entire world when it comes to marine mammals and habitat for other wildlife like migratory birds."

"Despite the risks to these areas with the proposed development, the plan was pushed through and the courts have shown that to have this kind of development in sensitive regions you have to abide by the law and do the proper analysis that's needed," she said.

Interior Department Press Secretary Kendra Barkoff said, "We are carefully reviewing today’s decision. Secretary Salazar believes that we need a comprehensive approach to an offshore energy plan, based on sound information about our resources and extensive public input. That's why he has extended the public comment period 180 days and has held four regional meetings on the previous administration’s proposed new five-year OCS [Outer Continental Shelf] oil and gas plan."

On Tuesday, Salazar held a regional meeting on the OCS plan in Alaska. He went to Dillingham, one of the communities in Bristol Bay where there would have been a lease sale. Now the Bristol Bay lease sale is on hold until Salazar signs off on the government's next plan.

"This is an opportunity for the secretary to take a step back and make sure any future decisions concerning offshore drilling are backed by sound science and thoroughly reviewed," said Beardsley.

The American Petroleum Institute also is reviewing the implications of the appeal court’s decision. "It would be a disservice to all Americans - and a devastating blow to the economy - if this decision were to delay further the development of vital oil and natural gas resources," said the industry organization.

"America’s oil and natural gas industry is the backbone of the economy," said the API. "Development in federal waters off the nation’s coast provides thousands of well-paying jobs, government revenues and the fuel needed to run America’s cars and factories, heat our homes and the feedstock needed to make the materials we use every day."

Environmentalists say drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas would be devastating to the one-tenth of the world's polar bears that inhabit the area, as well as walruses, seals and whales.

Whit Sheard, Alaska program director of Pacific Environment, said the five year leasing program "represents all the failures of Bush-Cheney energy policies."

"It is yet another gift of public resources to Big Oil and turns the Arctic Ocean - one of the regions most heavily impacted by climate change - into a sacrifice zone for drilling and oil spills that simply can't be cleaned up.”

Athan Manuel of the Sierra Club, which is not one of the plaintiff groups, said today, "It would only take one spill to devastate the area's marine life and the Alaska native communities who rely on the seas for survival. We don't need to open wild and special places like the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas to drilling. Instead, we should be investing in the kind of clean energy that will create good jobs, combat global warming, and position America as a global leader in the new clean energy economy."

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.