Voices from the Flats – The BP Gulf Disaster Taught Us Lessons We Already Knew
Oil rig in Cook Inlet
By Hal Shepherd, Acting Executive Director, Kachemak Bay Conservation Society
Homer, Alaska
The BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year should serve as a stark reminder to Alaskans just how vulnerable our fisheries and the families they support are to spilled oil. Alaska is no stranger to such events.
Cook Inlet, which supports one of the state’s premier commercial and sport fishing economies, is a clear example of what we have to lose if an uncontrollable well blowout occurs here. Such an incident is not so difficult to imagine.
Right now, two independent oil companies, Houston-based Escopeta Oil, and Buccaneer Alaska Drilling LLC, an Australian firm, are looking to bring jack-up rigs to Alaska. They are convinced huge quantities of oil and gas remain beneath the Inlet, ready to be exploited. When a jack-up rig arrives, offshore drilling in Cook Inlet could begin within months.
While rare, blowouts have occurred three times on Inlet rigs, in 1962-63, 1985 and 1987-88. Are the state’s response measures sufficient to handle a blowout from new wells? That’s unknown at this time, because the proposed drilling anticipates sinking wells into previously untapped formations containing unknown pressures.
Cook Inlet’s ecosystem and economy would not soon recover from the damage caused by a blowout that took weeks or months to seal. Alaska should demand drillers use the “best available technology” (BAT) when they drill exploration wells. That means, among things, requiring companies to show they can drill relief wells quickly – to relieve the pressure from a blowout – or even that they drill them concurrently with their primary wells.
Canada currently requires “same-season” relief-well drilling capability in its arctic waters, meaning companies must be able to demonstrate they can drill a relief well in the same season as an exploration/production well. Even Adm. Thad Nelson, the man charged with overseeing the Gulf cleanup effort, has said that idea should be considered for U.S. waters. With the potential for two jack-rigs in Cook Inlet at the same time, we have an important opportunity to do exploratory drilling right.
More costly? Certainly. Safer? Definitely. Out of the question? No, unless corporate profits continue to hold a higher priority than fisheries protection and human safety. In Alaska’s oil economy, unfortunately, state priorities have historically deferred to development and profit, and little in the current regulatory climate appears ready to alter that economic status quo.
But economics from a different perspective are important too.
A new state law (Senate Bill 309, signed by Gov. Sean Parnell last summer) provides a 100-percent subsidy – up to $25 million – to the first company to drill a well in the pre-Tertiary zone, with lesser subsidies of 90 percent and 80 percent – up to $22.5 million and $20 million – for the second and third wells, respectively.
There’s an old saying: the free market is a wonderful thing – we should try it sometime. In light of our current economic recession – the worst in decades – why exactly is the state offering still more tax breaks to oil companies? Alaska needs that revenue and shouldn’t be creating new tax holidays for what amounts to high-stakes gambling.
Meanwhile, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) has granted Buccaneer’s request to invest up to $30 million in its project. While AIDEA should be applauded for making capital available to businesses in Alaska, why should the state hand public money to the richest industry on the planet? Buccaneer may be a small fry player among giants, but surely it could find backing from within the industry itself. Escopeta apparently has. It isn’t currently seeking public financing.
The oft-heard demands that government keep its hands off “private” enterprise lose their force when wealthy oil companies seek to make their risks “public” by reaching into taxpayers’ pockets.
These are critical issues. Whether we choose to heed the warnings from the Gulf of Mexico will determine whether future drilling in Cook Inlet and on the North Slope are done safely. Better spill prevention and response measures – including a requirement for relief wells for exploratory drilling – are the first step toward more responsible oil and gas development in Alaskan waters.
I would argue here that there are unique characteristics in Cook Inlet that should make it the last place anyone would want to develop more oil. Four historically active volcanos for starters. Those volcanos exist primarily because of the Aleutian subduction zone which is capable in historic terms of producing earthquakes of magnitude 9.2 (1964). No amount of caution or drilling technology is going to be able to mitigate the potential effects of their obvious and well understood threats. What is not well understood is what would be the effect on many producing wells of a massive earthquake and the undersea pipeline systems essential to such development? What effect would a pyroclastic eruption of one of the volcanos have on the no doubt much expanded coastal tank farms and separation facilities built to process and ship the oil?
There seems to be another point here which is glaring but still overlooked by those who favor such development. The oil companies involved are not huge multinationals like BP or Exon-Mobile with deep pockets, they are small and probably under capitalized if they are looking for subsidies. Who will end up footing the bill if mistakes are made or disaster occurs? Are the combined assets of Escopeta Oil, and Buccaneer Alaska Drilling LLC equal to spending $20 billion to mitigate the consequences of a major pollution event or will they simply go bankrupt and walk away?
I could go on but I think that is enough food for thought.
About three weeks ago I had a chance to fly into Hallow Bay which is across from Kodak Island on the Alaskan Peninsula. It a remote “C” shaped beach about two miles long completely inaccessible except by boat or airplane suitable for landing on the sand. Anyway, I flew in with a fish and wildlife employee on a perfect sunny sunday. We get out and take a few pictures of each other around our planes and began a walk down the beach looking for glass balls or other items of interest. Some time into our hike my buddy Jim mentions bringing a bucket and trying to get some clams. Clams!? But then he mentions that it might be a number of years yet because the clam beads had been poisoned by the Exon Valdez Disaster. I looked around and saw no obvious signs of oil but I knew then: there were hardly any shells on a beach that should have a windrow of them at the waters hight tide line. There should have been a thick mat of sea weeds as well? I could not recall the date of the spill but I really wanted a shovel, not so much to dig for clams but to dig for oil as it were. In my Village there is talk of multi plane clam digging trips to this and other bays on the ” Pacific Side” but wondered why no one did it any more. Now I know. I guess you could call this another cultural experience erased by the failure our technology and this within my lifetime…
M. Paul
Cook Inlet is so beautiful, and so ecologically sensitive, that if ANY drilling is to occur there, it should not be a burden on Alaska’s taxpayers (who DO benefit from its beauty in tourist dollars as well as enjoyment). If drilling goes forward, it should require simultaneous drilling of relief wells, as is done not only in Canada, but Brasil and all of Europe.
Spills kill ecosystems. We’ve had enough of that.
I don’t quite understand why I was living in Homer in 1989, which was lightly oiled, then was living in Naples, Florida for the BP spill. Just like the T/V Exxon Valdez, everything was a total lie. No oil near Naples – you could smell it. Fisherman were pulling up huge tarballs just off the coast. The whole thing was deja vu – the weak first response, no containment plans, no contingency plans, no plans. Lies from the heads of the corporations. And my favorite one – the oil is gone. Thank you, I am sure Einstein would agree. What bothers me the most is the outcome of the 1991 Oil Spill Prevention Act, passed by Congress in response to the T/V Exxon Valdez spill. It established the Regional Citizens Advisory Councils, and I was honored to serve on the CIRCAC (Cook Inlet) as the City of Homer representative. This was to be a model program, and then to be used throughout the nation. Too bad it’s still mired down in Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound. And I haven’t heard of any legislation from Congress after this BP spill to make private owners responsible for their messes or more safely legislation. Oh that’s right BP is a person, not a corporation.
the whole idea of drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, the incubator for vast amounts of phytoplantons that feed the multitude of fish and mammals, is appalling and short sighted. Please look up/google the work of Dr. Michelle Ridgeway, watch her video and listen to her lectures on how valuable this area is for the natural systems on this planet…the time is NOW to rally for protection and gratitude for the gifts of this earth, over profits for the few.
thank you Hal Shepherd. I will be fwding on.