A national environmental group is planning to sue the Interior Department to stop oil exploration work in a broad swath of Northwest Alaska congressionally designated for the activity, citing risks to polar bears
A northern section of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on the state's North Slope.
“Continued oil and gas exploration and development is fundamentally incompatible with polar bear survival and recovery,” the notice states. According to the center, 88 Energy’s planned five-year exploration drilling program is likely to impact bears in the area through noise and on-the-ground development associated with long-term industrial activities, which includes building more than 80 miles of ice roads each winter. Changes to this winter’s planned ice road route compared to last winter also add to the “amount of road constructed in potential polar bear denning habitat,” the notice states.
The company’s Merlin project in the NPR-A is near the legacy Umiat oil prospect in the southeastern corner of the federal reserve. The Umiat prospect, despite being long-known to hold oil, has not been developed, in large part because of its remote location far west of the Dalton Highway.
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