White House Opens More of Alaska to Oil and Gas

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, January 23, 2004 (ENS) - Interior Secretary Gale Norton finalized a plan Thursday to open 8.8 million acres of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve to oil and gas development. Norton said the plan "will help meet America's need for environmentally sound energy development" but critics see it as a gift from the Bush administration to the oil and gas industry.

The management plan signed by Norton opens 7.23 million acres of the 8.8 million acre northwest planning area of the reserve to oil and gas development. The plan defers the remaining 1.57 million acres from leasing for 10 years.

The Interior Secretary said the plan safeguards the environment of Alaska's North Slope and that all energy leases will be subject to strict environmental standards.

"This plan will help produce energy in an environmentally responsible manner with the best available technology, while protecting the important biological, subsistence and cultural values found in this area," Norton said.

The plan aims to ramp up drilling in Alaska. (Photo by Pamela Miller courtesy ArcticGems)

The reserve was created by President Warren Harding in 1923 - the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) assumed management responsibility for the NPRA in 1976.

Harding first earmarked it for energy development, but NPRA is also vital to endangered waterfowl, migratory birds, caribou, polar bears and other mammals as well as to several thousand Alaska Natives who live in the area and depend on the land for subsistence.

Environmental groups say the plan fails to balance oil development with environmental protection.

The plan does not afford "real protection to one single acre, resource, or cultural value in the western Arctic," said Eleanor Huffines, Alaska Regional Director of The Wilderness Society.

"All we have asked for is a rational balance between oil and gas development and protecting wildlife and the environment, but apparently even that was beyond the capacity of this administration to understand," Huffines said.

Conservationists had argued for a management plan that would allow oil and gas leasing, but would protect such several coastal and inland ecosystems important to wildlife.

BLM officials say their plan responds to those concerns. The 1.57 million acres closed to leasing for a decade cover many of these areas, officials said, and Norton agreed to designate 102,000 acres as the Kasegulak Lagoon Special Area.

Kasegulak Lagoon provides critical habitat for migratory birds and marine mammals and features marine tidal flats that are rare on the North Slope.

Officials add that the plan sets up studies of caribou several endangered bird species in the reserve and has restrictions to protect habitat for raptors within the Colville River Special Area.

Critics see the 10 year deferral of leases as a ruse because pipelines and other industry infrastructure will not reach these areas for a decade.

Some animals have adapted to oil and gas development in Alaska, but drilling has left deep environmental scars on the fragile tundra. (Photo courtesy Arctic Power)

Shogan says the administration ignored the findings of a report issued this year by the National Academy of Sciences that found the impacts of more than 30 years of drilling on Alaska's North Slope were evident over an area far exceeding the specific areas used for oil and gas drilling.

Conservationists are also skeptical of the Bush plan because it allows the BLM to modify or waive all of environmental safeguards on a case-by-case basis for "economic" reasons and changes existing prescriptive lease stipulations to mirror industry guidelines.

The BLM says it will hold a lease sale for tracts in the northwest corner on June 2, 2004.