tagged w/ Dept. of Interior
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A federal court Wednesday afternoon ordered all activities under Lease Sale 193 in the Chukchi Sea off the north coast of Alaska halted pending further environmental review by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement, formerly the Minerals Management Service.
The court determined that the agency failed to meet its obligation under the law to analyze the importance of missing basic scientific information about the Chukchi Sea and verify whether it could obtain the information prior to offering leases in the sea. The court also faulted the agency for failing to analyze the potential impacts of possible natural gas development from the lease sale. In light of today’s decision, Secretary Salazar should fundamentally reexamine the decision to offer leases in the Chukchi Sea.
Earthjustice represented the Native Village of Point Hope, City of Point Hope, Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Oceana, Pacific Environment, Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL), Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society and World Wildlife Fund in a challenge to the lease sale in federal court in 2008.
The Minerals Management Service approved oil and gas drilling leases in the heart of the Chukchi Sea without adequately analyzing the potential impacts of the sale. The court’s decision shines a spotlight on the need for adequate scientific data before opening sensitive areas of the ocean to risky oil and gas activities. The danger of committing our ocean to risky oil and gas activities without full environmental review is highlighted by the ongoing tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Chukchi Sea is home to sensitive populations of endangered polar bears, bowhead whales, and spectacled and Steller’s eiders, among many other species of fish and wildlife. The bounty of the Chukchi Sea is at the heart of the subsistence culture practiced by native Inupiat communities.
Despite the significance and sensitivity of the Arctic Ocean, there is a profound lack of basic knowledge about the sea and the wildlife that inhabits it. Data gaps exist on whale migrations and feeding habits. There is no reliable population estimate for species of walrus or seals. No population estimates for polar bears are available for the Chukchi Sea. Global climate changes are wreaking havoc on sea ice, upon which many species depend for survival. An oil spill on any scale in this sensitive and often harsh climate would have devastating impacts. No technology exists to clean up an oil spill in these Arctic waters.
Reactions on today’s decision
“This is an important decision directing the Secretary to consider the need for more information on the Chukchi Sea. We have long argued that more science, more data and more research is needed in the sensitive waters of the Arctic Ocean before oil and gas lease sales or drilling are allowed occur,” said Erik Grafe, an attorney at Earthjustice. “Federal agencies have a basic obligation under the law to fully assess missing information about potential impacts of their actions, and to obtain it if they can, before they act. In this case, the court decided that the Minerals Management Service did not meet its obligation before it issued oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea.”
“We are pleased with this decision. We hope Secretary Salazar will use this chance to fundamentally reconsider oil and gas leasing in the Chukchi Sea, our ocean and our garden. We hope the Secretary sees where we are coming from and honors his commitment to support tribes and our efforts to carry on the subsistence traditions of our elders. There is too much at stake to take shortcuts,” said Caroline Cannon, President of the Native Village of Point Hope.
“The past few months have taught us all a painful lesson about the risks of offshore drilling. An oil spill in the Arctic's broken sea ice would be impossible to respond to. A spill would be the nail in the coffin for Arctic communities and wildlife like polar bears, which are already struggling to survive. And where there is offshore drilling, there are oil spills. This lease sale never should have happened. It was the product of the same broken system that led to poor oversight of BP's drilling operations,” said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune.
“This is a victory for both the Arctic environment and for the communities of Alaska's North Slope. As it has been repeatedly demonstrated, and now reinforced by the BP tragedy in the Gulf, the Department of the Interior and the former Minerals Management Service has failed more often than not at providing the necessary oversight for decisions related to offshore oil and gas development,” said Carole Holley, Alaska Program Co-Director at Pacific Environment. “We are hopeful that the federal government will reconsider Chukchi Lease Sale 193, given the irreversible impacts associated with oil and gas activities in one of the most sensitive regions of the world.”A federal court Wednesday afternoon ordered all activities under Lease Sale 193 in the... more
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The Interior Department is offering oil and gas leases on 1.8 million acres of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve while promising to protect critical migratory bird and caribou habitat.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the Bureau of Land Management will offer 190 tracts with bids to be opened Aug. 11 in Anchorage. The sale is one of dozens, mostly in Western states, that Salazar announced in November.
The petroleum reserve covers 23 million acres on Alaska's North Slope. That's an area slightly smaller than the state of Indiana.The Interior Department is offering oil and gas leases on 1.8 million acres of... more
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The Interior Department is under attack from a former department chief who said it is incapable of overseeing offshore drilling and from a group of scientists and environmental groups calling for its current head to be fired.
Bruce Babbitt, Interior secretary under President Clinton, said Interior's Minerals Management Service lacks the tools to provide adequate environmental oversight of offshore oil and gas operations and the job should instead fall to U.S. EPA.
"The Interior Department can supervise collecting the money and giving the licenses but we need an absolutely independent regulator, and I think EPA is the logical choice," Babbitt said yesterday on the TV program "Platts Energy Week."
Last month, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ordered a massive overhaul of MMS, breaking the agency into three separate offices responsible for issuing permits of offshore drilling, collecting revenue from those operations and enforcing safety regulations.
MMS is under fire for cozy relationships with industry and reports of sex, pornography viewing and drug use, as well as approving offshore drilling operations -- including BP PLC's exploration plan for the area where oil is now gushing into the Gulf -- by way of a "categorical exclusion," a streamlined environmental review intended to be applied only to routine projects.
Babbitt said Salazar's reorganization plan does not go far enough. "I think Salazar is basically rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic," he said.
Babbitt said the industry has "essentially been self-regulating" for years, across both Democratic and Republican administrations but that the more serious problems did not take hold until President George W. Bush took office. "The corruption that has crept into the agency is a relatively recent phenomenon coming out of the deregulatory ethic that crept up during the Bush administration," he said.
Enviro groups want change at top
A coalition of 101 environmental groups and scientists said today that Salazar has failed to reform that corruption and should be fired for it.
"Today we know that real reform at MMS never happened," the coalition wrote in a letter (pdf) to President Obama asking him to demand Salazar's resignation. "MMS continued its reckless lack of oversight of the oil and gas industry, this time in the form of rubberstamping offshore oil and gas development."
The letter, whose signatories include national and regional wildlife groups and a handful of former Interior scientists, is also critical of Salazar's efforts on restoring scientific integrity, protecting endangered species and overseeing the coal industry.
Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff defended Salazar's efforts following the Gulf spill and his plan to restructure MMS.
"Secretary Salazar has ordered a fundamental restructuring of MMS that will be systemic and not cosmetic because he is well aware that we need to clean up the troubled agency and restore balance to the development of our nation's offshore energy resources," she said.
continuedThe Interior Department is under attack from a former department chief who said it is... more
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What's the point of the Interior Dept. issuing decrees if companies are still going to be allowed to get away with toxifiying the planet and destroying national landmarks for profit?What's the point of the Interior Dept. issuing decrees if companies are still... more
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Pure water and pristine wilderness make Glacier National Park and its sister park in Canada, Waterton Lakes National Park, a unique place worthy of its designation as Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, a UN World Heritage site and Biosphere Reserve. Grizzlies, wolves, wolverines, lynx and many threatened species depend on its pristine habitats. However, the park and its wildlife are threatened by mining and gas drilling in the Flathead River Valley adjacent to the park.
Our leaders need to know how you feel about this special place.
This month the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations will meet in Spain to rule on a petition submitted by 11 leading environmental groups in the U.S. and Canada. The petition urges the committee to add Waterton-Glacier to the list of World Heritage sites "In Danger."
One proposal under consideration by British Columbia's government is for an open pit coal mine less than 25 miles upstream from the park. More than 325 million tons of waste rock would be dumped into a tributary of the Flathead River that forms the western border of the park and provides critical habitat for threatened bull trout and genetically pure westslope cutthroat trout. Any leakage from the waste dumps would send toxic sludge into Waterton-Glacier within 24 hours.
Other mineral exploration is underway even closer to the park boundary. Proposed mining and drilling in the Canadian Flathead Valley would push threatened species closer to extinction by disrupting the seasonal migration of trout, eagles, falcons, moose and elk, and the dispersal of wide-ranging carnivores.
Take action: Tell decision-makers in Canada and the United States that mining and gas drilling do not belong upstream of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park in the Flathead River Valley.Pure water and pristine wilderness make Glacier National Park and its sister park in... more
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