Earthjustice calls Shell’s oil spill response plan for the Arctic “totally inadequate”
Oil drilling platforms at Cook Inlet, Alaska. (Photo: Florian Schulz / visionsofthewild.com)
Apparently, Shell Oil and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) live in a land of make believe. Thankfully, Earthjustice makes its abode in a place called reality.
Earlier this month, BOEMRE approved Royal Dutch Shell’s plan to drill for oil next summer in the Alaskan Arctic’s Beaufort Sea. Putting the sled in front of the dog team, BOEMRE approved Shell’s risky drilling plan before ensuring the company had a realistic oil spill response plan. Shell’s current oil spill plan would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so dire.
Shell claims that it will be able to clean up 95 percent of an oil spill with booms and skimmers if one were to occur in the Arctic’s remote, icy waters. Never mind that only 8 percent of the oil after the Exxon Valdez spill and only 3 percent of the oil after the Deepwater Horizon spill was captured and removed from the ocean using skimmers and booms. Never mind that 23 hours of darkness, 20-foot swells and widow-maker chunks of ice riding wave crests are par for the course in the Beaufort Sea. Yep, 95 percent, piece of cake.
Fortunately, Earthjustice is not going along with the charade.
Since BOEMRE’s Aug. 5 decision to green-light Shell’s exploration drilling plan, Earthjustice attorneys have been analyzing the agency’s decision and working with the Department of the Interior to persuade it to make more responsible decisions concerning other permits Shell needs before it can drill in 2012, including realistic plans to respond to an oil spill.
“The only good news about BOEMRE’s decision to approve Shell’s drilling is that this approval is conditional,” explains Erik Grafe, an attorney in Earthjustice’s Alaska Office. “Shell still has to get all the other permits it needs, and one of those is approval of its oil spill response plan. The spill response plan Shell has submitted is totally inadequate. It is based on very unrealistic assumptions about its ability to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic. The fact is, there simply is no way to adequately respond to an oil spill in the Beaufort Sea—it is too remote, icy, stormy, dark, and foggy. Shell’s plan needs to acknowledge the difficulties of the region, not assume them away.”
Earthjustice and its clients continue to communicate with BOEMRE and other government officials to advocate for an in-depth, serious analysis of Shell’s drilling plans. In addition to its oil spill response plan, the company must also gain approval of permits to harass whales, seals, walrus, and other mammals pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Shell’s planned drilling is directly in the fall migration path of endangered bowhead whales and could block the whales from reaching an important feeding and resting area. Shell estimates that close to 5,600 migrating bowhead whales, almost half the population, could be exposed to sound and disturbance from the drilling and icebreaking that could cause them to change their behavior and avoid the feeding area. This could harm the population, particularly mothers and young calves, and could affect Alaska Native communities that rely on the bowhead whale and other species to sustain their subsistence way of life.
There is no official timeline for approval of the outstanding permits, but Shell will likely submit various permit applications throughout fall and winter 2011.
“This was a really bad decision by BOEMRE, but this isn’t a done deal,” Grafe says. “We’re hard at work trying to convince the agency to go slow and not let Shell drill until it has a realistic spill response plan and until the government takes a hard look at the risks and environmental effects of Shell’s drilling plans. We’ll be very vigilant in watch-dogging the situation and making sure Shell does not start drilling without the necessary environmental protections in place.”
Print this page
Email this page
peoples bibles even say the oil companies is the thing of the devil and if people do not stand against it all earth and all there on it are doom.
Does anyone here eat meat or drive cars?
Our world relies on fossile fuels right now. Good or bad, that is the reality. While you may hate companies that produce oil and natural gas, they are the companies that are focused on renewables more than any other group. Should America go the way of Spain and bankrupt the nation on a pipe dream called wave power... Oh wait, we are already bankrupt. Who is supposed to build smart grids needed to transport renewables? Thats right the power companies and corporations everyone here hates so much.
Soon though, the realizations of marine and surface life being disrupted by wave buoys, underwater turbines, solar panels, and wind farms will result in you screaming to stop building these machines because it disrupts migration.
Sorry to say it, but you're going to have to deal with the big bad corporations and if you really want to make a difference, get off the grid. I for one like my SUV, and as an avid hunter/angler, mountain biker, I love nature as well. But I am also a realist. Without companies producing profits, the changes you DEMAND they make, cant be done or they go out of business. Instead of ranting, why not help produce safety standards or technologies that make exploration, deep water drilling, fracking, etc safer?
I see you like your toys. But you will not be able to use them for long if our planet is destroyed by big Corporations. We are already in crisis. Just have a look at what one company, Monsanto, has done to the world in the name of profits. (fact)They have destroyed small farmers and even whole towns here and around the world with their infatuation with MONEY. Look at the damage they have done to the planet and will not clean up their mess. All of this in the name of PROFITS. A line has to be drawn sometime and if we don't do it, then who will?? (fact) They use their so called profits to buy politicians, lobbyists, and anyone else who gets in their way. Monsanto are using profits to benefit Monsanto and nobody else. WHen will people LEARN that making corps pay their taxes will NOT bankrupt them or cause job loss...IT IS A LIE perpetuated by politicians and the corps who pay them off.
Sadly, you appear to have a case of cranial rectosis--head in rectum. The energy companies won't seriously endorse renewable energy until they extract every last bit of fossil fuel from the Earth.
the diesel engine was designed to run on bio fuel from the hemp plant, it gives 15% more power and is clean and renewable. oil is the ruin of the earth and it made more rich idiots than any other business. we dont even have to use it. we use to run the navy on bio diesel before oil forced the take over. Ford made the hemp car and the government raided him for it. google up Ford hemp car and then you might wake up to the lie our government has become. thay are now without mercy and the stench has reached our creator. stop the drug war , close the DEA and get ride of subcontract prisons and the nation building and we can pay for the Americans that need help
It does seem as if the oil and energy companies will continue to get whatever they want regardless of who is in the White House. I really expected Obama to do more to protect the environment, but it appears as if he won't stand up to these powerful companies in their quest to get access to every last drop of oil or coal on planet Earth, no matter how remote or pristine the area. I fear that these companies, who pay little or no US taxes, will win approval of not only drilling in the Arctic Sea, but will also eventually get access to ANWR and will get the horrible Keystone XL pipeline built too. This would only be hastened by Tea Party victories in the next couple of election cycles. Part of their agenda is to dismantle as many anti-pollution laws as possible and perhaps even eliminate the EPA.
I am an oceanographer. I worked in Prince William Sound in the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill. Twenty two years later, I can take you to places in the sound and will still find oil. All it takes is to dig down a foot or so. We saw the unfoldng disaster of the BP DeepWater Horizon debacle. Look how long it took to stop the gusher. That oil is in the gulf and is killing marine life everyday. It is not gone as the Obama administration and the oil companies claim.
I am outraged at the stupidity in allowing this to go forward. When will government ever learn? I have seen firsthand the devastation brought by an oil spill. I do know having done research in the Beaufort and Chuckchi Seas that an oil spill there will be catastrophic. As the article correctly points out, the effects to the wildlife and the Native communities will be immeasurabe. Just the activities alone will be disruptive to cetaceans and other marine life. This is riduculous. But let's face it people, the reason these permits are being approved is simple - the military wants the oil so that they can continue to conduct the illegal wars the US is engaged in now. We must all stand up and together and stop this! We cannot risk another DeepWater Horizon event in the arctic.
(Oh, unfortunately, ANWR or the 1002 Region boundaries end at the shoreline and does not extend out to the ocean. So, congressional authorization is not needed for offshore drilling whereas it is required to drill within ANWR, 1002 Region, the coastal plain).
Do not give up! We must fight this. I do know there are environmental agencies in Alaska (I live in Fairbanks) who are always engaged in fighting environmental destruction and degradation. Agencies such as Northern Alaska Environmental Center are on top of this. We need to form a coalition and all join forces as a single unifed front to fight this. There is strength in numbers.
Would you please direct me to where it says the Obama administration claims that all the oil in the gulf is gone. Thanks!
Very well put, Jim. Please check out October2011.org
This will be a place to educate the people.
Al Gore, also has a site and a global event occurring next month.
climaterealityproject.org September 15. You will greatly appreciate what is getting ready to happen.
Once again, very well written.
Diane
Hasn't lust and greed for oil already destroyed enough or our Earth and it's wild and marine life. We need to be concentrating on sustainable fuel alternatives. They're already in place. We just need to get the fuels readily available to the masses.
Post new comment