SEATTLE - As the United States tries to wean itself off oil from the Middle East, it needs to find supplies elsewhere. There's plenty of it up in the arctic, but drilling for oil in polar bear country opens up a whole new can of worms.
One such drill is being worked on in Seattle at Vigor Shipyard.
Layla Hughes with the Alaska Wilderness League looks at the oil rig Kulluck and sees potential disaster.
"Yes, we don't know what repairs have been done to it, but we do know this boat hasn't drilled a well in 18 years," Hughes said.
If all is approved, and the permitting goes through, the Kulluck will be drilling for oil this summer in the Beaufort Sea -- one of the most remote, ice-plagued bodies of water in the world.
"I think the arctic is one of the most dangerous places in the world to drill," Hughes said.
Hughes and her organization are scared to death that one misstep like the one we saw in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago would be catastrophic and almost impossible to clean up because of ice, wind, waves, and sheer remoteness.
But Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh says the Kulluck is a proven (?) arctic class drill ship.
"And it has more experience drilling in the arctic than any ship or any vessel around the globe," she said. (SEE ABOVE " ...hasn't drilled a well in 18 years ")
Shell officials say the project has been under more scrutiny than any oil drilling venture in history, and it's passed every test (?) so far.
"These wells in the Beaufort and Chukchi Sea are in shallow water and they are low pressure wells, which is very different from what we witnessed in the Gulf of Mexico in the summer of 2010," op de Weegh said.
Hughes doesn't seem comforted. She says the technology to clean up oil in an ice-riddled area doesn't even exist.
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