National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska

Map of northern Alaska showing location of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA).

The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska^[1] (NPR-A) is an area of land on the Alaska North Slope owned by the United States federal government and managed by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It lies to the west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-managed National Wildlife Refuge is also federal land on the North Slope. At a size of 23.5 million acres (95,000 km²), the NPR-A has been described as "the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States" (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is 19 million acres (77,000 km²)) and includes a point 120 miles (190 km) from the nearest village or driveable road. Inupiat Eskimos live in several villages around its perimeter, the largest of which is Barrow, the seat of the North Slope Borough.

Oil and gas reserves

An assessment by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 2010 estimated that the amount of oil yet to be discovered in the NPRA is only one-tenth of what was believed to be there in the previous assessment, completed in 2002.^[2]

The new USGS estimate now says the NPRA contained approximately "896 million barrels of conventional, undiscovered oil".^[2] The reason for the decrease is because of new exploratory drilling, which showed that many areas that were believed to hold oil actually hold natural gas.

The estimates of the amount of undiscovered natural gas in the region also fell, from "61 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, conventional, non-associated gas" in the 2002 estimate, to 53 trillion cubic feet (1,500 km³) in the 2010 estimate.^[2]

History

Syncline ridges in southwestern NPRA

The NPRA was created by President Warren G. Harding in 1923 as Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 4 during a time when the United States was converting its Navy to run on oil rather than coal. In 1976 the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act renamed the reserve the "National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska" and transferred it from the Navy to the Department of the Interior. The 1980 Interior Department Appropriations Act directed the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) within the Department of Interior to conduct oil and gas leasing. Nevertheless, the area was left essentially as a wilderness until the late 1990s.

BLM divided the reserve into three planning areas: the Northeast with 4,600,000 acres (19,000 km²) of public land, the Northwest with 8,800,000 acres (36,000 km²) of public land, and the South with 9,200,000 acres (37,000 km²) of public land. In 1998, after BLM had gone through a planning process for the Northeast area, the Secretary of Interior signed a Record of Decision (ROD), which opened 87 percent of this area to oil and gas leasing. BLM has since leased almost 1,500,000 acres (6,100 km²) in the Northeast. A ROD for the Northwest area was signed in 2004. In this area 2,300,000 acres (9,300 km²) have been leased. BLM began the planning process for the South in 2005, but discontinued it in the summer of 2007 because residents were concerned that extraction of oil and gas would harm resources needed for subsistence.

A picture of the NPRA area looking very similar to a more southern wetland

In 2008 the plan for the Northeast area is in the process of being changed. The ROD for the Northeast reserved 800,000 acres (3200 km²) of the most ecologically sensitive areas, mostly around Teshekpuk, as a wildlife reserve. In January 2005, the George W. Bush administration decided to eliminate the reservations for the most sensitive areas. This decision was challenged by lawsuits. On September 7, 2006, the United States District Court for the District of Alaska in Anchorage blocked the sale of leases on 600,000 acres (2400 km²) of wetland around the Teshekpuk Lake area. In response to the court, BLM released a Supplemental Integrated Activity Plan/Environmental Impact Statement. The agency is expected to issue a final supplemental statement in the spring of 2008 and may hold a lease sale for the Teshekpuk area in the fall of 2008.

The conservation movement as a whole has put less effort into preserving the NPRA than it has into protecting the smaller Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to its east. A citizens' proposal to conserve the entire NPRA as a National Pleistocene Refuge, with no future oil and gas leasing, has been put forward. Other conservation initiatives have concentrated on specific areas within the NPRA that are particularly rich in wildlife such as the Teshekpuk area and the wetlands along the Ikpikpuk River in the Northwest. As of early 2008, these campaigns have not achieved any permanent successes, despite the fact that a committee of the National Research Council in 2003 published a report that supports environmental claims that oil and gas extraction in the reserve may cause permanent and irreversible environmental damage.

Ecological importance

The NPRA is an ecologically important area. It contains Teshekpuk Lake, an important nesting ground for many species of migratory bird, including shorebirds and waterfowl. The NPRA also supports more than half-a million caribou of the Western Arctic and Teshekpuk Caribou Herds. The Western Arctic Herd calves in the Utukok, Kokolik and Colville uplands, while the Teshekpuk Herd calves in the areas surrounding Teshekpuk Lake. The highest concentration of grizzly bears in Alaska's Arctic, as well as wolverines, and wolves prey on the abundant caribou. NPRA contains the headwaters and much of the Colville River, Alaska's largest river north of the Arctic Circle. The region's geology is unique in Alaska and most of the area was never glaciated.

See also

• Arctic Refuge drilling controversy
• Natural resources of the Arctic
• Arctic policy of the United States

References

• "The Specter Haunting Alaska", New York Review of Books 52:18, November 17, 2005
• "Inside the Endangered Arctic Refuge", New York Review of Books 53:16, October 19, 2006
• Arctic 1000
• Audubon Alaska. "Issues and Action: Western Arctic/National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA)"
• Bureau of Land Management. "National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA) Planning Page."
• Committee on the Cumulative Environmental Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska's North Slope, National Research Council. Cumulative Environmental Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska's North Slope. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2003.
• Department of the Interior. "Fact Sheet: Northwest National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska Integrated Activity Plan, Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision."
• Davis, John and John Meikle. "Voices for a National Pleistocene Reserve."
• Conserving Special Areas in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
• Map: Special Areas and Selected Wildlife Use Areas.

Notes

1. ^ The area may be referred to as the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska, but the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act and the regulations implementing it actually identify it as the "National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska." See Designation of National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska; reservation of lands; disposition and conveyance of mineral materials, lands, etc., preexisting property rights 42 U.S.C. § 6502.
2. ^ ^{a b c} USGS Oil and Gas Resource Estimates Updated for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA), USGS press release, 26 October 2010