U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials in Alaska says they plan a new lease sale in the highly contested northeast section of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, following the signing of the record of decision on the final environmental impact statement in Washington, D.C., earlier in the day.
A sale of 400,000 acres of highly prospective, but environmentally sensitive, acreage north of Teshekpuk Lake in the NPR-A will likely be held in late September, BLM spokesperson Jody Weil said. A formal notice of the sale will be issued 30 days earlier, in late August, she said.
Weil said that unleased acreage in other parts of the northeast and northwest NPR-A planning areas that were not sold in earlier sales will also be included in the September sale. The final environmental impact statement on an unleased area near Teshekpuk Lake was completed about a year ago, but the final signing of the record of decision was delayed until Jan. 11. The area includes about 400,000 acres of sensitive wetlands that is prime habitat for black brant and other shorebirds. BLM geologists estimate the area could hold up to 2 billion barrels of undiscovered recoverable oil.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Chad Calvert approved a plan amendment Jan. 11 that expands a no-surface occupancy restriction on 47,000 acres of caribou calving area near Teshekpuk Lake.
Environmental groups are not happy with the signing of the record of decision. John Scheon, senior scientist with the Audubon Society's Alaska chapter, said the no-surface occupancy restriction will still allow pipelines to be built across sensitive waterfowl nesting areas. Conservation groups and the North Slope Borough, a regional municipality populated by Inuit Eskimos, had asked BLM to add additional restrictions, but those were not done, Scheon said.
"We do not object to oil and gas development on the North Slope or in the NPR-A, but we do feel there are special areas that need protection - and the area north of Teshekpuk Lake is one of those," he said.
Tim Bradner can be reached at tim.bradner@alaskajournal.com.
