MARCH 31, 2015
WASHINGTON, DC
(Reuters) - The U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday upheld a
2008 lease sale in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska, moving Royal Dutch Shell a step
closer to returning to oil and gas exploration in the Arctic since it suffered
mishaps in the region in 2012.
"The Arctic is an important component of the
Administration's national energy strategy, and we remain committed to taking a
thoughtful and balanced approach to oil and gas leasing and exploration
offshore Alaska," said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.
Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will next
consider Shell's exploration plan and perform an environmental assessment on
it, which could take at least 30 days.
Shell lost control of a massive oil rig called the Kulluk in
2012, which eventually ran aground. But in anticipation of returning to the
region for the first time since then, Shell has already moved rigs to Alaska.
Many environmentalists and most citizens oppose energy
exploration in the offshore Arctic without independent oversight, saying that
once production comes on line any oil spill would be extremely difficult to
clean up in a remote area with rough and frigid seas. Alaska is still suffering from the Exxon Valdez
disaster.
Oil industry interests say the Arctic will be important to
the country's energy security in coming decades when output from shale
formations wanes.
We have our fingers crossed, but we know that these people
will create epic disasters in the arctic.
They have neither the expertise nor the environmental protection first
in mind, as drilling and oil production is a filthy and dirty operation; it
always has been. Now these pristine
waters are doomed. Just remember this
day we warned you: April fool’s day, 2015.
//-------------------------------//
AMERICA’S SECOND-WORST OIL SPILL IS STILL SCARRING THE
SHORES OF ALASKA
MARCH 24, 2015
An oil skimming operation near the southwest end of Prince
William Sound in April 1989 in Valdez, a week after the beginning of an oil
disaster which occurred when the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on March 24,
1989
March 24, 1989: The Exxon Valdez runs aground, leaking 11
million gallons of crude oil.
It was the worst man-made environmental catastrophe in U.S.
history — that is, until five years ago, when it was eclipsed by a disaster
roughly 20 times its scope. On this day, March 24, in 1989, the Exxon Valdez
oil tanker ran aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and spewed an estimated
11
million gallons of oil into pristine arctic waters. Only the 2010 drilling-rig
blowout in the Gulf of Mexico was worse; then, over the course of 87 days,
more than 200 millions of crude oil gushed into the Gulf.
Twenty-six years ago, however, it was hard to picture a more
destructive oil spill than the one in Prince William Sound. The oil slick
fanned out as far as 500
miles from the tanker’s crash site and oozed along 1,300 mi. of
shoreline. Tarred, feathered sandpipers and oil-coated otters featured in devastating
nightly news footage. Salmon and eagle populations were decimated. Thousands of
seals and a quarter of a million shorebirds died, per TIME. And despite a
massive, multi-year cleanup effort that cost Exxon billions of dollars, the
region is still suffering.
While the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico teem with
bacteria that have helped break down some of the crude unleashed by the 2010
Deepwater Horizon blowout, the icy waters of Prince William Sound inhibit
decay, and oil patches that can be traced back to the Valdez still linger on
remote beaches, just below the sand.
“The oil may not leak out in quantities that are immediately
visible, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there,” one scientist told
TIME in 2009, when random tests along the shoreline revealed that an
estimated 20,000 gallons of oil remained. “We thought the cleanup would be a
one-shot deal — but it’s still lingering.”
As of the spill’s 25th anniversary last year, only 13 of 32
affected wildlife populations and habitats monitored by the government since
the spill were listed as “fully recovered” or “very likely recovered,” according
to CNN. Some were listed as “not recovering,” including the herring
population, once the source of a booming fishery, and a pod of killer whales
that lost 15 of its 22 members after the spill and is expected to die off
completely in the coming years.
While the lessons learned in the Alaskan cleanup may have
led to a better response to the spill in the Gulf, the most enduring lesson is
that maritime oil spills are devastating even with the best possible response.
“Whether it’s Prince William Sound or the Gulf of Mexico,
seldom is more than 10 percent of the spilled oil recovered,” Alaskan writer Marybeth
Holleman concluded in a CNN opinion piece. “This will be especially true in
Arctic waters. And regardless of how safe we make oil drilling, tankers, or
pipelines, we’ll never reduce spill risk to zero.”
//-------------------------------//
STILL DIGGING UP EXXON VALDEZ OIL, 20 YEARS LATER
JUNE 4, 2009
Twenty years since the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground in
southeastern Alaska on March 24, 1989, spreading an 11-million-gallon crude-oil
inkblot into Prince William Sound, the formerly pristine coastal waters once
again appear clean and untouched.
Birds like the arctic tern and the endangered Kittlitz's
murrelet can be seen skimming the astonishingly beautiful Alaskan coastline
while sea otters backstroke through the cold, clear waters of the Sound. It is
a remarkable turnaround since the Exxon spill, the worst man-made environmental
disaster in U.S. history — the immediate shock of which killed hundreds of
thousands of shorebirds that made their home in the Sound along with sea otters
that choked on the crude. Over the long term, populations of orcas, killer
whales, herring and other species would be injured by the accident. (Read "Remembering the Lessons of the 'Exon Valdez.'")
Today, the coast is clear and clean. But clean is not the
same as pristine. Decades ago, some of the spill found its way to a beach on
Knight Island in the Sound, a site that scientists studying the accident would
designate KN-102 but which during the multiyear cleanup would earn another
name: Death Marsh.
Here, on Death Marsh, Mandy Lindberg, a scientist with the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Alaska's Auke Bay,
turns over a shovel of sand and broken rock to reveal a glistening pool of
brackish oil. The crude can be chemically typed to the Exxon Valdez, and more
oil can be found beneath the beach at Death Marsh and at a number of islands
around the Sound. "I wouldn't have possibly believed the oil would last
this long," says Lindberg. "Studying the spill has been a great
learning experience, but if we had known in the years after the spill what we
know now, we would have been looking for oil much earlier."
What scientists like Lindberg know now is that the legacy of
the Exxon Valdez is still visible — physically, on the beaches of Prince
William Sound and in the animal populations in these sensitive waters that have
yet to rebound fully. Using funds from the original spill settlement between
Exxon and the state of Alaska, scientists from NOAA have carried out major
studies that show oil still remains just beneath the surface in many parts of
the Sound — close enough for animals to be affected by it. "The oil may
not leak out in quantities that are immediately visible, but that doesn't mean
it's not there," says Jeep Rice, a NOAA scientist who has led the studies.
"We thought the cleanup would be a one-shot deal — but it's still
lingering."
Rice and his colleagues picked a sample of 90 random sites
at beaches around the Sound and dug about 100 small pits at each site — more
than 9,000 in all. They found oil in over half the places they sampled, despite
the fact that only 20% of the beaches that had been hit hardest by the spill, like
Death Marsh, were included in the study. Altogether, the NOAA scientists
estimated that about 20,000 gallons of oil still remained around the Sound,
usually buried between 5 in. and 1 ft. below the surface. (See pictures of the world's most polluted places.)
Those 20,000 gallons, out of at least 11 million spilled,
might not seem like much, and scientists initially assumed that whatever oil
was left behind during the original cleanup would eventually break down
naturally. But it turns out that crude oil — especially when it is spilled in a
cold region like southeastern Alaska — lingers in the environment for years.
And as long as the oil is there, it can harm the animals that might come into
contact with it. Sea otters, for example — the face of the Valdez spill — dig
millions of foraging pits in beaches around the Sound, enough to come into
contact with oil numerous times. Although the population of sea otters in the
area has recovered since the spill, the return has been slow, and researchers
suspect the oil might be the reason. "The pattern shows evidence that
they're still being exposed," says Rice. "It's not enough to kill
them outright anymore, but it's a chronic exposure — and in an environment like
this, when species live close to the edge, that could make a difference."
Scientists are still digging into the Sound's beaches,
trying to get a better sense of how much oil might be left and whether it will
be possible to finish the cleanup. And there are still other questions that
need to be answered. The Sound's valuable commercial herring fishery collapsed
completely a few years after the spill — there are just 10,000 tons of the fish
left today, down from a peak of 150,000 tons before the accident — and
researchers are trying to figure out what impact the oil might have had on the
species' decline. "We'll never be able to fully link the herring to the
oil, but we want to know why the species won't come back and whether it's worth
spending the money to help it recover," says Rice.
Exxon-funded scientists have released their own studies,
which question the NOAA team's findings and claim that there is little oil left
in the Sound. But Rice's studies have held up under peer review — and this
reporter personally saw oil buried in a handful of beaches. Ironically, the
Exxon spill has greatly enhanced scientists' understanding of the effect that
crude oil can have on a vulnerable marine environment: it is more toxic to life
than we thought, and harder to clean up. "Even the best cleanup will fall
short," says Craig Tillery, a deputy attorney general for the state of
Alaska — whose Bristol Bay and Chukchi Sea are being considered for offshore oil
and gas exploration — and a member of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee
Council, which funded the NOAA studies. "You have to make sure this never
happens."
Source: time.com