AlaskaWild Update #265 - August 16, 2007
- Victory in the Arctic Waters: Courts Stop Shell Oil From Drilling this Year in Beaufort Sea
- Spills Adding up on Alaska’s North Slope
- Experiencing Alaska: Exploring the Threatened Western Arctic
Victory in the Arctic Waters: Courts Stop Shell Oil From Drilling this Year in Beaufort Sea
On Wednesday, August 15, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted Alaska Wilderness League and other Native and conservation organizations’ request that Shell Offshore halt all exploratory drilling activity in the Beaufort Sea just off of the Arctic Refuge until the court decides whether environmental harms were properly considered. The court ruling marked a victory for subsistence communities and marine wildlife, and it suggests that Shell’s longer term plans of drilling in the Beaufort Sea might be in danger.
In April, Alaska Wilderness League and a coalition of Alaska Natives and conservation groups legally challenged Shell’s plans to drill in the Beaufort Sea, claiming that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts of such large-scale industrial activities. Most strikingly, the government agency failed to account for the significant threats to endangered bowhead whales, polar bears, and other marine mammals as well as subsistence activities in the area.
Until the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rules on this original legal challenge, the petitioners requested that Shell refrain from any exploratory activity, especially during the peak of bowhead migration. Wednesday’s favorable ruling to this request was significant and may foreshadow the court’s response to the underlying challenge. The court order concluded that the petitioners “have shown a probability of success on the merits” and that “the balance of hardships tips sharply in their favor.”
The next court hearing on the challenge to Shell’s drilling plans is scheduled for December.
Spills Adding up on Alaska’s North Slope
Last summer, Prudhoe Bay – America’s largest oil field – made headlines for all of the wrong reasons. Severely corroded pipelines, a series of leaks, and further documentation of poor maintenance in general, forced half of Prudhoe Bay to shutdown. These highly publicized failures occurred just months after more than 201,000 gallons of crude oil leaked from a Prudhoe Bay transit line, marking the largest crude oil spill in the history of North Slope oil operations.
Any doubt that these problems reflected isolated incidents as opposed to a wide-spread trend has been removed by a new Alaska state study. The upcoming study, as reported by the Associated Press on Monday, August 13, demonstrates that spills have occurred with regularity over the past decade. More than two million gallons of toxic substances – ranging from crude oil to gasoline and tainted water – leaked onto Alaska’s fragile tundra from the 4,481 spills documented by the oil industry between 1995 and 2005.
The state study helps illustrate the constant threat to the environment that the oil industry represents. While there is no scientific consensus regarding the long term impacts of these toxic spills, it is clear that wherever there are oil operations, there will be oil spills. These figures further reinforce the need to protect the most ecologically important areas on Alaska’s North Slope still free from oil development. Help keep these areas safe by urging your members of Congress to permanently protect the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as Wilderness and to prevent oil exploration and development in the sensitive wetlands around Teshekpuk Lake of the Western Arctic.
Experiencing Alaska: Exploring the Threatened Western Arctic
For six days in the middle of June, a band of Alaska activists explored the Utukok River in Alaska’s Western Arctic. Led by Tom Campion, Alaska Wilderness League’s board chair, and Kristen Miller, the League’s Legislative Director, the group traveled through some of Alaska’s wildest and most threatened land. Robert Kennedy Jr. and several other amazingly dedicated activists joined the trip to see first-hand the land that needs our protection.
Dave Shreffler, one of the arctic travelers, has written a beautiful and powerful piece about the trip, available in its entirety online. Here’s just a sample of his reflections:
The tundra is a sprawling carpet of blooming wildflowers; the sky a 24-hour stage for dancing clouds. We’re immersed in a vast, undulating landscape, springing to life after nine months of smothering snow and ice. Lapland longspurs welcome the change with melodious rifts, as nesting plovers skitter about scolding us for coming too close.
For days on end I’ve reveled with new friends in the emerging splendor of the Utukok Uplands, a wildlife haven containing the core calving area of the 450,000 head western arctic caribou herd, the largest concentration of grizzly bears north of the Brooks Range, and healthy populations of wolves and wolverines.
…I was privileged to be a part of a remarkable trip with remarkable people. I’m humbled by the accomplished company I kept. My inclusion as “trip photographer” was a gift I cannot repay. What I can do, what all AWL members can do, is to lend our support to protection of some of the most wild and remote public lands left in North America. “Your land, your voice” isn’t just a catchy slogan – it’s a call to action.
(click here to read the entire article)
Many of you have also traveled to Alaska and experienced the wildness and adventure that only Alaska can provide. We would love to hear your stories and to share them with others who love Alaskan wilderness and what it represents. To help collect these accounts, we have created a page on our website where you can tell us about your Alaska experiences. Share with us what Alaska means to you!
