Rescind Shell oil companies’ artic drilling permits and Declare a moratorium on all off shore dril

Spill response plans are incapable of dealing with the rough icy and remote environment throughout the entire year.  Not enough is known about the stability of possible methane hydrates on the artic sea floor.  Methane hydrates in these areas that may become more unstable as the artic sea warms. Drilling in these regions could exasperate that instability. 

In the article

Shell overcomes legal obstacles to Arctic drilling,  by Sara Reardon from the New Scientist Environment blog, reference 1, These problems where identified.

·       booms would be ineffective as floating sea ice would obstruct them.

·       dropping dispersants from helicopters, can leave fish more exposed to oil's harmful effects. And it's not clear how well they would work in the Arctic: even in mid-summer, low-angle sunlight and cold water could fail to activate the chemicals.

·       burning the oil, and skimming it off the surface. have problems becauseThe flammable materials that are added to oil spills for burn-offs would also be less efficient In the artic

·       Shell will have ice-breaker ships on hand to create a path for skimmers, but broken ice may create more problems. "On a good day, we can recover 15 per cent of the oil from a fixed release in open water," says Richard Charter of the Ocean Foundation. "If you get tar oil mixed with broken sea ice, you're not going to recover it at all."

·       if oil gets under the ice, he (Richard charter) says, it could stay there indefinitely since it won't be degraded by sunlight or bacteria. Shell says they can track the oil under seasonal ice using radar and other sensors, and recover it in the spring. But recovering oil that's carried out to sea would be too dangerous for skimmer ships.

.

·       The Last resort to deal with a blowout is to drill a relief well the only solution that has been consistently and permanently effective, in stopping a blowout – they're not required to take the precaution of drilling two wells in parallel in order to have one ready. It takes three to six months, to drill a relief well, precious time they would not have if the blowout were late in the season.

The GAO Government Accountability office has raised these questions as well reference 2

·       The report raised questions about whether wellhead equipment could withstand ice that scoured along the sea floor.

·       If a blowout did occur, Shell and the oil industry might not have enough boats and people in place to deal with it, the GAO report said.

·       The report said Shell officials "told us that additional personnel would be needed to respond to a subsea well blowout. Moving personnel to the site could delay a response, since harbors, airstrips and hotels necessary to support personnel are limited in number and size along Alaska's northern shore. The facilities are also generally much farther from the drilling sites than they are in the Gulf of Mexico."

References’:

1.       New Scientist Environment blog, Title:  Shell overcomes legal obstacles to Arctic drilling, Author: Sara Reardon 17:58 30 March 2012 © 2012 Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21654-shell-overcomes-legal-obstacles-to-arctic-

Titled: Interior Has Strengthened Its Oversight of Subsea Well Containment, but Should Improve Its Documentation GAO-12-244, Feb 29, 2012  http://www.gao.gov/assets/590/588961.pdf