By Ben Geman - 11/30/09 07:21 AM ET
The Associated Press is reporting an oil spill yesterday near BP’s Prudhoe Bay field on Alaska’s North Slope. The spill contaminated roughly 8,400 square feet of snow-covered tundra, according to the account.
Keep an eye on this one. A spill from a Prudhoe Bay pipeline in 2006 revealed a major corrosion problem, drew strong Capitol Hill interest and led to an overhaul of pipeline safety laws.
A state Department of Environmental Conservation official said it is not clear how much spilled or what caused it, but that no oil reached the bay, according to AP.
The official said BP quickly sent crews to contain the spill and that the Environmental Protection Agency also sent a team.
The accident occurred at a pipeline that was not in operation at the time. "Initial cleanup began today," said BP Alaska spokesman Steve Rinehart in the AP account. "A visual inspection today revealed that the release rate is very slow ... and the released material is congealing in sort of a pile below the pipe.”
Source:
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/69683-bp-oil-spill-reported-in-alaska
Just a few weeks earlier BP et al released news of preferred arctic oil spill clearn up testing results. Did they use any of these arctic clean up techiques to deal with the above spill?
http://greygooseadventures.blogspot.com/2009/11/20-years-since-exxon-valdez-oil-spill.html
You guessed right - NO they did not use BURNING or DISPERSANTS - just good old scoop it up and haul it away as toxic soil and mixed absorbant pads etc. Do you hear the same old recording playing over and over again? Its been over 20 years since EXXON VALEZ.
Yes, Its been over twenty (20) years since the EXXON VALDEZ oil spill in Prince William Sound and they still do not have a better solution to cleaning up an oil spill than they did over 20 years ago. BURNING releases toxins into the atmosphere (a clear no-no) and DISPERSANTS (again a no-no) wets the oils so it sinks to the seabed casuing extreme long term environmental damage into the food chain. Its very disappointing for a business with BILLIONS of DOLLARS in resources and technology. Shame on you oil industry!
keep reading on...
Residents voice opposition to Shell’s offshore drilling
NS Borough mayor fears oil spills on Arctic sea ice
The Arctic Sounder
April 19th, 2007
By Beth Ipsen
Residents of the North Slope are familiar with the reality of increasing oil development.
Villagers in Nuiqsut, for example, live with the lights and structures of the nearby Alpine Field. However, the prospect of development encroaching upon the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and the hunting grounds of coveted bowhead whales has many on the North Slope worried.
“We have consistently supported onshore oil and gas development,” North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta said at a public hearing on April 5 in Nuiqsut.
That includes support for opening to oil development of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. However, Itta and many others on the North Slope have steadfastly opposed offshore development. Itta’s No. 1 concern is there hasn’t been a proven way to clean up oil spills, especially in sea ice.
“We oppose offshore until somebody proves to us they can clean up an oil spill in the Arctic,” Itta said. “We’re not to waver, certainly not I, in my term as mayor.”
Another concern is the impact of offshore drilling on subsistence hunting. The public hearing in Nuiqsut examined whether Shell Offshore’s Beaufort exploration drilling is consistent with the policies of the Alaska Coastal Management Program.
The state Department of Natural Resources and Office of Project Management and Permitting hosted the meeting in Nuiqsut and another public hearing in Kaktovik the following night. Residents packed the Nuiqsut city hall while villagers in other North Slope communities testified via teleconference.
The public hearing followed a two-hour open house where representatives from Shell, the U.S. Minerals and Management Service and state Department of Environmental Conservation mingled with residents and borough officials to discuss Shell’s proposed offshore activities.
Shell plans to drop exploratory drills 16 miles north of Point Thomson in Camden Bay during the open-water season this year. This includes four wells at Sivulliq near Flaxman Island.
A submersible drilling platform and a drilling vessel would be used in the exploratory drilling.
Shell also plans geotechnical drilling, slated for this year, to determine the economic feasibility of future wells. The activity for this year’s season would enlist a total of 16 vessels in the Beaufort Sea, according to the Shell Offshore’s two-year, open-water drilling exploration program filed with the coastal management program.
Activity in the following years would hinge on what is found this year. The North Slope Borough asked for additional information regarding the coastal management program’s review of the exploration project.
Further, officials asked that offshore activity be suspended until it is determined the project is “consistent with the enforceable policies” of the program, states a borough letter dated April 3 and addressed to Ben Greene, the coastal management program’s oil and gas project manager.
Other North Slope residents echoed this sentiment.
“We found that the information was insufficient and we still don’t have enough information about what is being proposed and what Shell would do if there are impacts,” Point Hope resident Alfred Downey said.
Some, including Itta, said coastal management program regulations have changed numerous times in the past few years, making it hard to judge whether Shell’s plan follows the guidelines.
“The primary purpose of the ACMP is to allow economic development while also protecting substance and other coastal resources and its uses,” Itta said. “It was already difficult to understand to begin with, now it’s even more difficult to understand.”
The coastal management program grew out of a 1972 congressional act designed to allow coastal residents to participate in deciding what happens in their area, Greene said at the meeting.
The purpose of the meeting, Greene said, was to help people understand what the coastal management program is doing “when it says it’s reviewing Shell’s proposal.”
Many said this was still unclear. Some Nuiqsut residents – a few testifying in Inupiaq – gave first-hand accounts of what the oil industry has forced upon the village.
Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, a village health aide and former Nuiqsut mayor, said there’s been an increase in the number of respiratory ailments in the village as nearby Alpine grows.
Bernice Kaigelak, vice president for the Native Village of Nuiqsut, said agreements with the oil industry have been forced upon the local government.
However, many testified that they fear that their comments will fall on deaf ears as they have done at past meetings over the years.
“It’s just like a recording, we’re repeating ourselves,” said Caroline Cannon from the tribal council of Point Hope. “It just seems like these giants are just getting bigger without the consideration of our people, our way of life.”
Those from Point Hope, including whaling captain Russell Lane, said offshore activity in the Chukchi Sea has chased animals from their hunting grounds. The village failed to land a whale in the fall, and walruses migrated to Russia instead of nearby shores, Lane said.
“My job is to carry on this legacy of my family who’ve been whaling here for thousands of years,” Lane said. “It just hurts me, it hurts my people, our elders, our grandkids.”
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/528/story/938926.html
Time to correct past wrongs in Arctic oil development
By BUCK PARKER
Environmental groups had high hopes for the Obama administration. They had spent eight years fighting off relentless efforts by the previous administration to eviscerate laws and regulations aimed at protecting our natural heritage and opening nearly all public resources to private exploitation.
The report card, nearly a year into the Obama era, is mixed but mostly admirable. The Environmental Protection Agency has overturned or withdrawn many onerous Bush initiatives. The Forest Service is doing pretty well by the national forests. The Park Service is working to protect Yellowstone from the annual onslaught of snowmobiles. The president will attend the Copenhagen climate talks.
Now, the Interior Department is faced with one of its biggest decision so far: whether to allow oil companies to lease and drill in the Arctic Ocean.
The upcoming Arctic decisions dwarf everything else Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has done so far. Interior's Minerals Management Service took a step in the wrong direction in October, approving a plan by Shell Oil to drill just offshore from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska next year, without a full environmental analysis. Other important decisions are imminent, including whether to continue offering lease sales, and defend existing leases, in the Arctic Ocean and whether to allow Shell to also drill in the pristine Chukchi Sea in 2010.
It is not too late for Salazar's Interior Department to correct course and protect the Arctic Ocean.
Others in the Obama administration have been urging a more sensible approach to the Arctic Ocean. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke has closed the Arctic Ocean to commercial fishing until more science about the region is available. The Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to designate large areas of the Arctic Ocean and its coast as critical habitat for polar bears. Recently the head of the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was unusually blunt: She wrote that until we gather more information about how to clean up oil spills in Arctic conditions, we should close the Arctic Ocean to oil and gas leasing. The recent leak of an oil well in the ocean off Australia that took 10 weeks to plug reminds us all of how difficult it can be to cap a blown well, never mind the dark and sub freezing temperatures of the Arctic out on the ice. President Barack Obama's Ocean Policy Task Force has also warned Salazar of the need to tread lightly in the Arctic.
Salazar should follow the advice of NOAA and hold off permitting new oil and gas activity in the Arctic until we have a better idea of how to respond when oil inevitably leaks and until we know a lot more about Arctic wildlife.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Buck Parker is the former executive direct of Earthjustice and now holds the title strategic adviser. Write to him at: Earthjustice, 426 17th Street, 6th Floor, Oakland, Calif. 94612; www.earthjustice.org.
This essay is available to McClatchy-Tribune News Service subscribers. McClatchy-Tribune did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the views of McClatchy-Tribune or its editors.
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