Environmental groups this week filed a lawsuit to block the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) proposed plan to open 8.8 million acres in the northwestern National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil and gas leasing.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton signed the BLM’s record of decision on the plan on Jan. 22, stating that it would “help meet America’s need for environmentally sound energy development as directed by the president’s National Energy Plan.”

But the coalition of environmental groups, including the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska in Juneau to force BLM to come up with a new proposal.

The groups say they don’t oppose oil and gas drilling in the reserve. They just would like to see more land preserved and more protections for wildlife. The overall reserve has two major caribou herds, marine mammal habitat, nesting habitat for millions of migratory birds, and one of the most important goose-molting areas in the entire circumpolar Arctic, according to the National Audubon Society. Much of the reserve also is heavily used by Alaskan natives for subsistence hunting and fishing.

“The secretary’s decision failed to give permanent protection to even one acre of wildlife habitat in the reserve and failed to evaluate any reasonable alternatives that would have done so,” said Audubon President John Flicker.

Flicker said that Audubon’s recommendations, which were “based on the best available science,” fell on deaf ears at BLM. Under the Audubon alternative, about 65% of the area identified by BLM as having high and oil gas potential would have been available for leasing. But the group also would have set aside selected areas, including Kasegaluk Lagoon, Peard Bay, Dease Inlet, and the Ikpikpuk River, for protection because of their “extraordinary value to wildlife, including threatened spectacled eiders, rare yellow-billed loons, and other species of birds on the Audubon WatchList.”

BLM did designate 102,000 acres as the Kasegaluk Lagoon Special Area, where drillers will face more stringent environmental restrictions and will be barred from leaving permanent structures. “This area is important for migratory birds and marine mammals and features marine tidal flats that are rare on the North Slope,” Norton said in January.

Of the 8.8 million acres, leasing also will be barred for a decade on 1.57 million acres, or about 17% of the area. All energy leases will be subject to strict environmental standards, according to BLM. The agency said its plan includes provisions to protect water quality, vegetation, wetlands, fish and wildlife habitats, and subsistence uses.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska has between 5.9 and 13.2 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil with a mean estimate of 9.3 billion barrels.

The undiscovered natural gas in the area ranges between 39.1 Tcf and 83.2 Tcf with a mean value of 59.7 Tcf (61.4 Tcf for the entire reserve including private lands). The economical viability of the gas depends on the availability of a pipeline to market, the USGS noted in a report in 2002 (see Daily GPI, May 17, 2002). The bulk of the natural gas resources are thought to occur in the central and southern NPRA.

Despite sporadic exploration since the 1940s, there has never been commercial oil or gas development in the National Petroleum Reserve.

“With America’s dependence on foreign oil growing each year, energy from the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska can help in the long term to increase our domestic energy production and stabilize prices,” Norton said. “This plan will help produce energy in an environmentally responsible manner with the best available technology, while protecting the important biological, subsistence and cultural values found in this area.”

But according to Audubon, that BLM’s proposed level of protection is in adequate. “It’s really a shame,” said Stan Senner, Audubon Alaska’s executive director. “By virtually ignoring the Audubon study and the opinions of nearly 100,000 Americans who supported a balanced plan for oil and gas leasing in the reserve, BLM needlessly missed a chance to ‘do it right’ and avoid these delays. If our lawsuit prevails, BLM will be forced to try again.”

BLM has announced its intention to hold a lease sale for selected tracts in the northwestern corner of the petroleum reserve on June 2. BLM’s plan was released in December 2003. It’s available on the Alaska BLM website at www.ak.blm.gov.

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