BLM modifies report on impact of drilling in Arctic

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Under orders from a federal judge, the Interior Department on Monday released a revised report of how oil and gas exploration would affect one of the most important habitats for calving caribou and migratory birds in northern Alaska.

The department hopes the updated report will help put it back on track to lease 400,000 acres around Teshekpuk Lake in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil and gas companies eager to expand operations on the fuel-rich North Slope.

“This sets the stage for determining future actions,” said Sharon Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management in Anchorage.

The BLM report contains broader descriptions than before of wildlife, industry and Alaska Native communities in the region, but makes few concrete appraisals about how drilling would affect the area.

“We pretty much just paint a picture of how things are right now and come to no conclusions,” Wilson said. “This report is not going to give you any predictions. We are really looking for input from the public.”

The document includes a new section on polar bears, which live in the petroleum reserve and are under consideration for addition to the Endangered Species List.

The lake sits above an estimated 2 billion barrels of recoverable oil, but previous administrations have left it untouched because of its environmental sensitivity.

Teshekpuk harbors migratory game birds that are popular with hunters as far south as Texas, such as the brant and the white-fronted goose, said Stan Senner, executive director of the Audubon Society in Alaska. Natives also harvest the birds for food. The Teshekpuk caribou herd uses the area to give birth and escape from insects.

Environmental groups have singled out the Teshekpuk area as some of the most important wetlands in the Arctic and began litigation over the lease sales in March 2005.

Judge James K. Singleton of U.S. District Court in Anchorage had halted the sales last year in the lawsuit. Singleton ruled that the government’s environmental impact statement for the long-protected area was too narrow in scope.

Environmental groups on Monday derided the agency’s changes as “cosmetic.”

“The BLM has just slapped a new coat of paint on an old plan,” said Myke Bybee, a public lands lobbyist for the Sierra Club. “They are still going ahead to try to open up the last protected piece of land in the reserve.”

The bureau is taking public comments on the revised environmental impact statement from Friday through Oct. 23.