Shell Arctic Drilling Plans Run into Yet Another Roadblock

Shell's Polar Star underway aboard the Blue Marlin. Image-Vincenzo Floramo/ Greenpeace
Shell’s Polar Star underway aboard the Blue Marlin. Image-Vincenzo Floramo/ Greenpeace

A little known permitting requirement uncovered by a coalition of 10 environmental organizations and revealed by the San Francisco-based EarthJustice, that requires that a “letter of authorization” allowing companies drilling to disturb walruses and other marine mammals, precludes drilling within 15 miles of each other. According to Shell’s drilling plans, the two drill rigs would be within 9 miles of each other.

This newest roadblock is one of the last four government approvals that are required to begin drilling in the 2015 season. Yet needed are two well specific drilling permits from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and two letters of authorization from the Fish and Wildlife Service. Both of the agencies are part of the Department of the Interior.

In a letter on behalf of the Alaska Wilderness League, Audubon Alaska, Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Ocean Conservancy, Oceana, and Sierra Club, EarthJustice pointed out to the Interior Department what they called a “fundamental flaw” in Shell’s proposed exploration drilling plan in the Chukchi Sea.

In their letter, the coalition referred to the Interior Department’s 2013 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regulations that prohibit drilling within 15 miles of each other, stating: 

In 2013, FWS promulgated an incidental take regulation under the Marine Mammal Protection Act that governs exploration drilling activities in the Chukchi Sea. See 78 Fed. Reg. 35,364 (June 12, 2013). In that regulation, FWS imposed a requirement of “a minimum spacing” of 15 miles between drill rigs “[t]o avoid significant synergistic or cumulative effects from multiple oil and gas exploration activities on foraging or migrating walruses.” 50 C.F.R. § 18.118(a)(4)(ii). As the agency explained: “A 15-mile (24-km) separation must be maintained between all active seismic survey source vessels and/or drill rigs during exploration activities to mitigate cumulative impacts to resting, feeding, and migrating walruses.” 78 Fed. Reg. at 35,391.

Shell was aware of the prohibition as early as that year says Earthjustice. It was then that Shell sent a letter opposing the proposed rule. In that letter, Shell said, “There is no basis for concluding that activity separation distances are necessary to avoid adverse impacts on walruses and their availability for subsistence uses by Alaska Natives.”

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In Shells 2014 proposal, they submitted a plan that included simultaneous drill plans for drilling about nine miles apart by the Noble Discoverer and the Polar Pioneer. Those plans violate the incidental take regulation. Shell’s backup provision relates to a scenario where they use one rig to drill in the Chukchi Sea while the other rig was positioned in Dutch Harbor for spill response purposes.

But, according to Earthjustice, BOEM “refused even to analyze a one drilling rig alternative,” and Interior Department regulators only considered the two well drilling program when they evaluated the environmental impacts of Shell’s Chukchi exploration plan before that plan was approved.

Earthjustice’s staff attorney, Holly Harris concluded that “Shell knew these rules (but) nonetheless chose to ignore them when it submitted its plan to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean, Interior cannot allow Shell to flout the government’s own requirements for protecting Arctic wildlife.”

While revisions may be made to the two-drilling rig plan by the government, that revision process could take a considerable amount of time and jeopardize Shell’s 2015 drilling plans.

Shell may be allowed to go ahead with the one-drill rig scenario, but Earthjustice says that any approval of that plan without analysis would not be “lawful” and “defensible.”

Interior Department spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw said the Fish and Wildlife Service ‘‘is reviewing Shell’s program to ensure compliance with all applicable laws.’‘

Any authorizations issued by the Interior Department are likely to be opposed in court, delaying any drilling plans for the foreseeable future.

Shell has spent over $7 billion over the past seven years pursuing its arctic offshore drilling plans in Alaska’s waters.

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