Court Asked to Block Alaska Oil Drilling

By TERENCE CHEA

SAN FRANCISCO – Environmental and Native Alaskan groups asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to block Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s plans for exploratory oil drilling near the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The U.S. Mineral Management Service decided this year to allow the energy giant to drill up to 12 exploratory oil wells in the Beaufort Sea off the northern coast of Alaska.

Attorneys for the groups appealing the decision told a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco, that the mineral agency didn’t adequately consider the drilling’s impact on endangered bowhead whales and other marine mammals.

They said the agency should require more extensive environmental studies before allowing Shell to drill.

"An oil spill in this area can have a potentially devastating impact that could linger," said Dierdre McDonnell, an attorney representing the Alaska Wilderness League, Sierra Club and other conservation groups.

Environmentalists and the Inupiat, natives of Alaska’s north coast, are worried about the impact of drilling on Arctic wildlife, particularly the bowhead whale that indigenous groups hunt for food under federal subsistence rules.

Attorneys for Shell and the government said they have conducted a thorough environmental analysis and measures in place already protect whales and other wildlife. They also emphasized the drilling is for exploration only and oil extraction would require more study.

"We are gathering information," said Shell attorney Kyle Parker. "We are going out for a limited period of time to see what is there."

Tuesday’s hearing follows the appeals court’s decision in August to temporarily bar Shell from exploration until the justices could weigh arguments on whether to allow the drilling.

Over the past few years, Shell Exploration & Production Co., part of Royal Dutch Shell, has spent more than $80 million for offshore leases in the Beaufort Sea. The 9-square-mile area proposed for drilling is close to Prudhoe Bay, the nation’s most productive oil field, as well as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska.

Shell’s drilling rigs and icebreaking machines can disrupt the bowhead whale’s migration through the Beaufort Sea, prompting the animals to swim farther from shore where whale-hunting becomes more dangerous, said attorney Chris Winter, who represents the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission.

"Bowhead whales are very sensitive to underwater noise and they can be deflected from their migratory route," Winter told the judges. Past exploration has "subjected the whaling crews to extreme risk of death and injury."

Justice Department attorney David Shilton told the court "exploratory drilling has taken place in several places of the Beaufort Sea before and there hasn’t been any ill effects."

A ruling is not expected for months.