KTUU.com | Alaska's news and information source | Barrow wary of Shell's upcoming exploration of Beaufort Sea

Barrow wary of Shell's upcoming exploration of Beaufort Sea

by Ted Land
Monday, November 02, 2009

BARROW, Alaska -- The Department of the Interior has approved Shell's plan to start exploring for oil and gas in parts of the Beaufort Sea.

Shell says it will start drilling test wells sometime next summer.

Residents in nearby Barrow are watching closely, unsure what this means for their way of life.

The centuries-old bowhead whale hunt in Barrow is done a little differently these days.

Most Inupiat Eskimos here don't shy away from modern technology. It's as much a part of their lives as any other Alaskans'.

But they are more wary of how it might affect their future.

Future generations very likely may have to share the Beaufort Sea with modern industry-- hunting for something else.

The Outer Continental Shelf starts anywhere from 50 to 200 miles off shore.  It's estimated there are 27 million barrels of oil and 130 trillion cubic feet of natural gas there.

Shell plans to start drilling two exploration wells in the Beaufort Sea late next summer.

It's an early step towards developing the vast resources off Alaska's coast, but getting to this point has not been easy.

The North Slope Borough and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission had sued the federal government trying to force further environmental studies.

In August the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the suit, allowing Shell to move forward with plans for exploration-- a major blow to groups in opposition.

"It's basically just one concern, the ecosystem, the animals, the seals, the whales, the fish..." said George Edwardson, vice president of the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope.

Edwardson had been listening to communications between whaling captains all day.

A kill means his friends and family will eat well this winter.

He's worked in the oil industry and says drilling can be noisy, which might drive away marine wildlife. And he's concerned about the threat of an oil spill in the icy Arctic waters.

"Just one spill and the salmon of North America will disappear because the Arctic Ocean between Siberia and here is their nursery and you can't eat oil," Edwardson said.

The concerns are addressed at myriad public meetings-- hundreds of them-- which the oil industry has been holding since 1996.

Few people attend any more.

"People get meetinged out very quickly in Barrow. It's a fact of life, we just have so many meetings," says Doreen Lampe of the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope.

"This is a discussion that's alive right now. It's at our dinner table, it's in our community meetings, it's in this board room, it's in our assembly room," says Richard Glenn with the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation.

Glenn is a whaler who also happens to be in charge of lands and natural resources for ASRC, which is eager to develop in a responsible manner.

"The question is how to make it so that our people, the residents of the Northern coast of Alaska, don't suffer more of the detrimental effects and are left away from the positive benefits of exploration and development," Glenn said.

Those positive benefits include jobs, money for local schools and better infrastructure.

Shell's drilling plans for 2010 include a mid-season break to accommodate next fall's whale hunt.

All operations will cease on Aug. 25 and vessels will leave the area for at least two months-- an acknowledgement that they are not the only ones making a living off the sea.

But will it be enough?

"These folks have been whaling for thousands of years, and they're not going to have an oil company come in and disrupt that, and they shouldn't," said Mike Schults, a Barrow City Councilman.

As for the Chukchi Sea, Shell says exploration is on hold.

The company is still entangled in a separate lawsuit brought by environmental groups and the village of Point Hope.

Shell's leases, like all gas and oil leases, will last only 10 years, unless the company starts developing. Then the lease is theirs for as long as the company is bringing petroleum out of the ground.

Shell has had its leases for about four years and it's just now starting to explore for oil, so it's a race against time, the court system and the permitting process.

Contact Ted Land at tland@ktuu.com