WASHINGTON, Feb. 17, 2012 – Today, the Obama administration, in the latest of a series of reckless decisions about America's Arctic Ocean, gave Royal Dutch Shell another approval for drilling this summer. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) announcement granted approval of Shell's oil spill response plans even though there is no demonstrated technology to clean up an oil spill in Arctic's icy conditions.
Statement from Cindy Shogan, Executive Director, Alaska Wilderness League:
President Obama made a profound and welcome promise in his State of the Union address saying: ‘I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago.' The plans for America's Arctic Ocean that were approved today do not live up to the president's promise. As we have seen this week with the blowout at an exploratory well in the North Slope, drilling is a dirty and dangerous business and is a threat to the fragile environment of America's Arctic Ocean. What's more, Shell's approved oil spill response plans include a commitment to clean up 95 percent of all oil spilled in the Arctic using mechanical recovery means – even though only 3 percent was cleaned up in the Gulf last year and only 8 percent was cleaned up after the Exxon Valdez spill.
Administration officials have expressed concerns about spill response in the Arctic saying that Arctic ‘spill response is a question' and if the Deepwater Horizon disaster was ‘to happen off the North Slope of Alaska, we'd have nothing. We're starting from ground zero today.' These concerns are real, as the last public spill drill in the Arctic – that tested booms and skimmers and other conventional methods of oil spill cleanup only in partial sea ice conditions in 2000 – was deemed a failure. Since then, the oil industry has put forth drilling plans that are inadequate, deficient and fail to take into account real-world Arctic conditions.
Yesterday, as President Obama traveled to Seattle, media and Arctic experts toured the out of commission Kulluk, the floating drill rig that Royal Dutch Shell plans to send to the Arctic Ocean this summer, in Seattle's Vigor Shipyards. The participants saw an aging Kulluk that has not drilled a well in 18 years and is visibly corroded and rusted.
President Obama has the ability to stop the next oil spill disaster before it happens by not granting Shell's final drilling permits. If President Obama continues to allow Shell to move forward, he could be left with the next major oil spill disaster on his hands – and the destruction of one of our planet's most vital ecosystems.
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