Stand Against Reckless Drilling in the Arctic Ocean
- by: Ocean Conservancy
- recipient: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)
President Obama has designated 9.8 million acres in the waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off Alaska's coast off-limits to consideration for future oil and gas leasing.
While this is a positive first step, other areas of the Arctic remain vulnerable to drilling. Oil and gas companies have shown they cannot operate safely and responsibly in the Arctic Ocean -- and we cannot afford a disaster like the Deepwater Horizon in the Arctic. It would devastate marine wildlife and extreme conditions like changing sea ice, fog, and high winds would make cleanup all but impossible.
Join Ocean Conservancy in calling for no risky offshore Arctic drilling.
I would like to thank President Obama for designating 9.8 million acres in the waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off Alaska's coast as off-limits to consideration for future oil and gas leasing. The President's action is an important and positive step to limit risky drilling, and will help protect the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, including vital walrus habitat at the Hanna Shoal.
However, I am deeply concerned about the potential impacts of oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean, and I urge you not to include any new oil and gas lease sales in Arctic waters in the upcoming 2017 to 2022 five-year program.
[Your Comments Here]
Arctic waters provide vital habitat for iconic wildlife such as walruses, ice-dependent seals, bowhead whales, and migratory birds. Many residents of coastal communities in the region depend on a healthy ocean to support their subsistence way of life. Both people and wildlife are already coping with stresses from a rapidly changing climate, including rapid loss of summer sea ice. Impacts from oil and gas operations oil and gas drilling will introduce significant noise, pollution, and traffic into this fragile environment. And as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico demonstrated, there is always the risk of a major oil spill. Such a spill could have devastating effects on Arctic ecosystems, people, and wildlife. On top of all this, the Arctic is an extremely challenging operating environment, with dangers that include cold temperatures, moving sea ice, poor visibility, and fierce storms. The region is also remote, with little infrastructure to support response operations if something were to go wrong.
BOEM should take a careful, cautious approach to offshore oil and gas operations in the Arctic. So far, oil companies have yet to demonstrate that they are capable of operating safely and responsibly in Arctic waters--as evidenced by Shell Oil's error-plagued drilling campaign in 2012--and have not shown that they can clean up a major oil spill in real-world Arctic conditions.
With all that's at stake in the Arctic, there is simply no reason to consider new Arctic lease sales in the 2017-2022 program.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
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