Defenders of Wildlife Blog

The Arctic's Chukchi Sea. Photo courtesy USFWS

WASHINGTON (November 8, 2011) – The Obama administration today announced its Proposed Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017. The plan schedules 15 potential lease sales for the five year period – 12 in the Gulf of Mexico and three off the coast of Alaska.

The following is a statement from Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO for Defenders of Wildlife:

“The Obama administration made the wise decision to protect vast tracts of the country’s oceans from oil and gas exploration. However, the inclusion of the Arctic Ocean in the country’s five-year drilling plan is indefensible. From the extreme and unpredictable conditions of the region to the lack of a realistic spill response, the risks of a drilling disaster in the Arctic remain too high to authorize exploratory drilling. While the announcement proposes to address these threats by deferring drilling for a handful of years, the only way to protect this fragile marine environment from the threats posed by dangerous oil and gas exploration is to take it off the table altogether.

Drilling in the Arctic Ocean poses grave threats to America's vanishing polar bears. Photo courtesy USFWS

“Instead of enabling our country’s addiction to oil for five more years, the administration should strengthen its efforts to wean America off dirty fossil fuels, accelerating the transition to a clean energy future.”

Learn more:

See how offshore drilling threatens the Arctic’s fragile marine environment.

Shell may begin drilling in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea as early as next summer. Read about the oil giant’s inadequate oil spill response plan and the threat it poses to bowhead whales and polar bears.

This week, the National Journal’s Energy and Environment Experts Blog asked, “Should Obama open Arctic waters to drilling?” Defenders’ president and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark responded with a resounding, “NO.” Read more about what she has to say about risky drilling in the pristine Arctic environment. 

It’s been a busy time for the Obama administration’s rubber stamp of Big Oil’s to do list. In August, the administration approved the first part of Shell’s plans to start drilling in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea as early as the summer of 2012, the most aggressive Arctic drilling proposal in the history of the country. And just this week, the administration reaffirmed the sale of almost 500 oil and natural gas leases in the adjacent Chukchi Sea, opening 2.8 million acres to drilling. This isn’t just giving offshore drilling the green-light; this is slamming on the accelerator, apparently with the hope or expectation that the obstacles in the road ahead—the rough, frozen Arctic seas, the harsh climate and remote location—magically vanish.

What ever happened to the Obama administration’s stated commitment to make decisions “based on sound science and the public interest, and not on the special interests?”

What ever happened to the Obama administration’s stated commitment to make decisions “based on sound science and the public interest, and not on the special interests?” Because if that commitment held true, the government wouldn’t allow drilling in the Arctic’s extremely sensitive and unique marine environment until we have filled the glaring information gaps identified by the U.S. Geological Survey just this summer. It would have acknowledged the recent studies that show that the Beaufort Sea’s Camden Bay provides habitat of “special significance” to the endangered bowhead whale. And it certainly would have heeded the U.S. Coast Guard officials’ repeated warnings that the resources to clean up an oil spill in the waters of the Arctic Ocean simply don’t exist. And yet none of that information has slowed down the “full speed ahead” attitude toward drilling in the Arctic Ocean.

Bowhead whales, courtesy NOAA

After BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, the Obama administration wisely delayed plans by Shell Oil to drill in the Arctic. Now is not the time to give in to pressure from Big Oil and forgo that prudent commitment to safety. There is still too much to learn about the pristine Arctic environment, and too much to lose if we don’t. When it comes to opening the Arctic waters to risky drilling, the administration should not let the voice of reason—and of science—fall on deaf ears.

Learn more:

Read the full question and see what others are saying on the National Journal’s Energy and Environment Expert Blog.

See how offshore drilling threatens the Arctic’s fragile marine environment.

Read more about Shell’s inadequate oil spill response plan and the threat it poses to bowhead whales and polar bears.

The Arctic's Beaufort Sea, courtesy NOAA

A coalition of Alaska Native and conservation groups today challenged the Obama administration’s decision to allow offshore oil drilling by Shell Oil in the Beaufort Sea in America’s Arctic Ocean.

After the devastating Deepwater Horizon spill, the Obama administration wisely delayed plans by Shell Oil to drill in the Arctic Ocean. But this August, the administration reversed course and approved the first part of the most aggressive Arctic drilling proposal in the history of the country by approving Shell’s plans to start drilling in the Beaufort Sea as early as the summer of 2012.

A spill in the Arctic Ocean would devastate polar bears, bowhead whales and other marine mammals and would severely affect Native subsistence communities which have thrived in this region for generations.

The most recent oil spill drill in the Beaufort Sea (which took place more than 10 years ago) described mechanical cleanup in icy conditions as a “failure.”  Nothing has changed since that drill. A recent report to the Canadian government concluded cleanup would be impossible 44 to 84 percent of the time during the short summer drilling season and completely impossible the other seven to eight months of the year.

“Pretending there’s no risk associated with drilling, especially in the fragile waters of the Arctic, is not only irresponsible, it’s unacceptable.”

U.S. Coast Guard officials have repeatedly explained that the resources to clean up an oil spill in the waters of the Arctic Ocean simply don’t exist. This summer, Commandant Admiral Robert Papp told Congress that the federal government has “zero” spill response capability in the Arctic.

Science has shown the Beaufort Sea to be essential habitat for endangered bowhead whales. Photo courtesy NOAA

Defenders’ Sierra Weaver said, “Both Shell and the federal government are proceeding as if the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster – the worst environmental catastrophe this country has ever seen – simply didn’t happen. Pretending there’s no risk associated with drilling, especially in the fragile waters of the Arctic, is not only irresponsible, it’s unacceptable.”

Defenders is among a broad coalition of Alaska Native and conservation groups represented by Earthjustice who are challenging the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement’s (BOEMRE) decision to allow oil drilling in the Beaufort Sea. Click here to read the full press release and see what other groups are saying about this risky and shortsighted move.

Learn more:

See how offshore drilling threatens the Arctic’s fragile marine environment.

Read more about Shell’s inadequate oil spill response plan and the threat it poses to bowhead whales and polar bears.

A recent oil spill off of Norway's coast shows how difficult - if not impossible - it would be to clean up a spill in Alaska's waters.

Even as Republicans in Congress continue to do Big Oil’s bidding, YOU joined more than 250,000 people from across the country to demand that oil companies keep out of America’s Arctic Ocean.

Earlier this week, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) introduced legislation that would waive environmental laws – even as we continue to clean up the largest manmade environmental disaster in U.S. history – and force the Obama administration to allow risky drilling in the Arctic Ocean. Meanwhile, more than 250,000 people called for no leases sales in the Arctic’s Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in the nation’s 2012-2017 offshore drilling plan during a public comment period that ended today.

Many cited the lack of science and the inability to clean up an oil spill in Arctic waters as reasons why the federal government cannot include lease sales in Arctic waters in the new five-year plan. Currently, there is no proven way to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic’s extreme conditions. In addition, there is a serious lack of scientific data on the Arctic, which is often called “the least understood area in the world.”

“Americans have spoken loud and clear, and safeguarding the pristine Arctic Ocean has come out ahead of embarking on a potentially devastating search for oil.”

Defenders’ offshore drilling expert Richard Charter said, “Americans have spoken loud and clear, and safeguarding the pristine Arctic Ocean has come out ahead of embarking on a potentially devastating search for oil. The risk of another massive oil disaster such as the one that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico less than a year ago – or worse, is simply too great to hand over the keys to an industry looking to make a profit at any cost.”

Keep drilling out of Alaska's Beaufort Sea (Photo courtesy of NOAA)

America’s Arctic Ocean is a national treasure. Home to many of our nation’s most beloved wildlife species – polar bears, walrus, ice seals, bowhead whales, beluga whales and more – these Arctic waters are the “garden” for the Inupiat people of Alaska’s Arctic coast. This fragile and abundant marine environment is under great stress from the impacts of climate change – the Arctic is projected to be free of summer sea-ice by 2030. With so much at stake, the federal government must not allow a headlong rush into risky drilling in America’s Arctic Ocean.

Learn more:

See how Defenders is working to protect wildlife and natural habitats from the dangers of offshore drilling.

Didn’t get the chance to speak up? You can still help! Call the White House and let the president know that you OPPOSE drilling off American coasts.

Exxon Valdez spews oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound

It’s been 22 years since the world watched one of the worst environmental disasters of our time unfold in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. But the tragedy still isn’t over - tens of thousands of gallons of oil from that disaster still linger just below the surface of Prince William Sound’s beaches.

And in a cruel twist of irony, just this week two more oil crises have occurred, in the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic Ocean.  In the Gulf, efforts to permanently plug a hurricane-damaged well resulted in the release of crude oil into Gulf waters for several hours. The Coast Guard is now investigating reports of a five-mile oil slick off of Lousiana’s Grand Isle.

In the South Atlantic, more than 800 tons of fuel oil has leaked from a freighter that ran aground on Nightingale Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago. The most remote inhabited island group in the world (1,700 miles from South Africa), the archipelago teems with biodiversity. About 200,000 penguins call the islands home, including nearly half of the world’s population of the endangered northern rockhopper penguins. New York Times reports that 20,000 penguins have already been oiled.

“Drilling in the Arctic puts a pristine marine environment at risk of long-term, and even permanent, damage. Unless we use the tragic lessons of past oil spill disasters to inform our policy decisions going forward, we will see the same tragedy played out on a different stage.”

These spills join the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico last year and last month’s spill in Norway’s Arctic waters. But despite this disastrous track record, the oil industry is pushing to drill in Alaska’s Arctic waters without the technology or know-how to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic’s extreme, icy conditions.

Keep drilling out of Alaska's Beaufort Sea (Photo courtesy of NOAA)

Defenders’ Richard Charter said, “Toxic oil continues to poison the rocky beaches of Prince William Sound 22 years after the Valdez spill. In Arctic waters, where cleanup technology doesn’t even exist yet, recovering from a similar disaster could take a century. Drilling in the Arctic puts a pristine marine environment at risk of long-term, and even permanent, damage. Unless we use the tragic lessons of past oil spill disasters to inform our policy decisions going forward, we will see the same tragedy played out on a different stage.”

What can YOU do?

You can help protect the fragile ecosystem off of Alaska’s coasts by calling Interior Secretary Ken Salazar TODAY to demand that he reject bad drilling plans and ensure that America’s Arctic Ocean is not sacrificed to line the pockets of Big Oil.

Learn more about how Defenders is working to protect America’s coasts and wildlife from the dangers of offshore drilling.

Norway's Coast Guard says they are learning how to best clean up the oil as they go.

Conditions in the Arctic Ocean can be a challenge, to say the least. From subzero temperatures, days of near-complete darkness, broken sea ice and 20-foot swell-conjuring storms, it is an environment unsuitable for much, let alone oil and gas drilling. Defenders has been fighting efforts to open up Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas for exactly this reason: an oil spill would devastate the fragile ecosystem supported in these waters, and despite the oil and gas industry’s feeble attempts to argue otherwise, the technology to clean up a such a spill doesn’t even exist.

And now we have proof. On February 17, an Icelandic oil tanker ran aground on the Southern Norwegian coast and began leaking heavy oil into surrounding waters. Greenpeace reports that cleanup operations are underway, but have been difficult due to ice covering the area. Frieda Bengtsson, an oceans campaigner for the group who spent time at the site last week with the Norwegian Coast Guard, told Alaska Public Radio Network that it’s shocking how slow the cleanup process is, and that two days of snowfall made it impossible to find much of the oil.

Sea ice renders this boom useless in Norwegian waters

Tragically, the spill occurred close to Norway’s Ytre Hvaler national park – the country’s only national marine reserve. An area rich in wildlife and coldwater coral reefs, already birds, seal pups and other animals have been impacted by the oil. To make matters worse, Bengtsson says the cold weather is making it difficult to handle sea birds that have been affected.

Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas are too rich with life to risk a spill such as this or one of even greater proportions. Defenders will continue to fight efforts to open these Arctic treasures to the devastating consequences of oil and gas drilling.

Learn more:

Take action! Click here to see how you can help stop the next offshore oil disaster.

See how Defenders is working to protect fragile Arctic ecosystems from the dangers of offshore drilling.