Public Comments Urge Halt to Arctic Ocean Petro-Development

In the public comment period that closed today, thousands of people from across the country asked the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service to call for a timeout on all industrial activity in the Arctic, until a precautionary conservation and energy plan is developed.

The comments were submitted on a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for four lease sales in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, due to take place from 2010- 2012. The Bush-era draft EIS proposes to conduct the lease sales, despite the risks to the Arctic ecosystem.

"The unique and fragile Arctic Ocean is already suffering from climate change and people across the country understand the critical need to protect it from a risky rush to drill," said David Dickson, western arctic and oceans program director for the Alaska Wilderness League.

"We hope the Obama administration will suspend all new industrial activities until a sound, science-based, comprehensive plan for America's Arctic is developed that ensures no further harm," he said.

Drilling unit offshore Alaska (Photo courtesy MMS)

"The Bush administration worked furiously to fast track drilling in the Arctic Ocean. They didn't take the time to fully study how oil spills and development would impact the communities and wildlife that live along the coast," said Sierra Club Alaska representative Trish Rolfe.

"Polar bears, walruses and whales are already struggling to survive in the face of global warming. Native communities that rely on subsistence for survival are already challenged by impacts from a warming Arctic. An oil spill could tip the balance against them," she warned. Late in his second term, President Bush also pushed through a draft of a new offshore drilling plan that would add additional lease sales in the Arctic Ocean and expand the Arctic Ocean's leasing area by 76 percent.

The Obama administration has since extended the public comment period on the Bush offshore plan and is holding hearings around the country next month to gather more information.

"We simply can't allow giveaways to Big Oil, such as the 70 million acres offered in the Arctic, to pass for an energy policy - especially in an area where our addiction to fossil fuels is already endangering wildlife and threatening traditional communities," said Whit Sheard, Alaska program director for Pacific Environment.

"The Bush administration's aggressive leasing plan for the Arctic Ocean ran roughshod over the interests of Native communities and the integrity of sound science," said Sean Babington with Earthjustice. "We are hopeful that the Obama administration will heed the call of these hundreds of thousands of Americans and implement a precautionary and science-based plan for managing our fragile arctic resources."

The Arctic is the "least studied and most poorly understood area on Earth," according to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. Climate warming in the Arctic is occurring at twice the rate of the rest of the planet, stressing the entire region, but the environmental and social impacts of oil and gas development have been poorly studied and documented.

Richard Charter, government relations consultant with Defenders of Wildlife, said, "As the crisis caused by global warming arrives sooner than anticipated in the Arctic, we have to review existing policies that would create further stress on the fragile ecosystems and wildlife of this region. That includes revisiting risky proposals to expand offshore oil drilling in the middle of eroding sea ice - conditions that would prevent cleanup of inevitable oil spills," said . "A prior administration's mistakes need not continue, and should not be repeated."

As the Arctic environment melts at a rapidly accelerating pace, Arctic wildlife, including the threatened polar bear, endangered bowhead whale, ribbon seal and Pacific walrus, are increasingly at risk.

Alaska Natives, who have sustained themselves for thousands of years on the bounty of the Arctic Ocean, watch as their way of life becomes increasingly imperiled.

"These misguided lease sales would be a disaster for the polar bear," said Rebecca Noblin of the Center for Biological Diversity. "How Secretary of the Interior Salazar proceeds is a litmus test for whether he can move beyond short-sighted Bush-era drill policies towards a future that protects arctic species like the polar bear."

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