Washington moves on with Arctic oil plan wildlife officials deem inadequate
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration is moving forward with a seismic testing plan in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge over the objections of government wildlife experts who warned the proposal was “not adequate.”
But Trump administration officials counter the testing will use modern techniques meant to minimise the impact on the relatively untouched landscape.
For decades, the remote coastal plain of the Arctic refuge in northeastern Alaska was closed off to fossil-fuel extraction. But before companies can begin to drill for oil there, they need to know where it is. So two Alaska Native corporations and a small oil services firm applied to do extensive seismic testing there this coming winter in order to map underground reserves of petroleum.
The application describes how special trucks weighing as much as 90,000 pounds would pound the ground with large, metal plates, sending vibrations through the earth. By recording how the sound waves reflect off underground rock formations, the researchers can create a three- dimensional map of the oil and gas.
Career staff at the US Fish and Wildlife Service issued a blistering response to the idea earlier this year. In an 18page review of the application, the career staff there say the company did not provide studies about the effects of that work on the wildlife in the refuge, writing “there is no documentation of environmental effects, whether positive or adverse.” Environmentalists worry that the thumping from seismic testing may disturb calving caribou, migrating birds and denning polar bears there.
But Joe Balash, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for land and minerals management, told The Post in an interview on Tuesday that seismic testers have become much better at reducing the footprint they leave behind after their work. “Some of the impacts that we still see today from the 1960s, those are not the impacts you will see today,” Balash said.
For example, decade- old scars of vehicle tracks from past testing are still visible in the tundra in the refuge. Balash said today’s softer tires and tracks will not tear into the ground like that. — Washington Post