For Immediate Release: June 25th, 2008
Contact: Whit Sheard, Alaska Program Director (907) 982-7095

Shell Abandons 2008 U.S. Arctic Drilling Plan

Lawsuit Forces a Halt to Controversial Beaufort Sea Operations

Anchorage, AK –Shell Oil announced that it will abandon a controversial 2008 Exploratory Drilling Plan for the Beaufort Sea, off Alaska’s northern Arctic coast. This is the second straight year that Shell has been forced to cancel drilling plans due to a court injunction.  Due to the high risks to endangered whales and polar bears, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered a halt to Shell’s activities until an evaluation of the Minerals Management Service’s hasty approval of the drilling plan is completed.  

A coalition of Alaska Native and conservation groups sued last year to halt the drilling because of concerns that such large-scale industrial activities would threaten endangered bowhead whales, polar bears and other marine animals in coastal waters just off the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The groups challenged the permit issued by the federal Minerals Management Service on grounds that the agency failed to conduct proper assessment of environmental impacts. 

“The ill conceived and overly aggressive plans to drill for oil in America’s Arctic waters imperils  species already pushed to the edge of extinction by climate change,” said Whit Sheard, Alaska Program Director for Pacific Environment, one of the plaintiffs in the case.  “We hope that other companies follow Shell’s example by cancelling their drilling plans and that the federal government wakes up and recognizes that it’s time to save our Arctic Ocean—not hand it over to oil companies.”

Noise from exploration and drilling activities would disturb bowhead whale migration and feeding in the Beaufort Sea. Also at risk from disturbance and potential oil spills are polar bears, beluga whales, and a variety of other animals, including the threatened Steller’s and spectacled eiders. 

Polar bears are at particular risk as their habitat melts away due to global warming. Last summer Arctic sea ice reached a record low while government scientists released a report predicting that polar bears will be extinct in Alaska by mid-century if warming trends continue.  Prompted by these dire predictions, the United States Department of the Interior listed polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act on May 15, 2008.

“It is unfortunate that the U.S. government has decided to continue the failed policies of handing over the keys to sensitive coastal areas to oil companies,” said Sheard.  “It will simply not solve our energy problems, will drive polar bears and whales closer to extinction, and is disrespectful to subsistence communities that have the most at stake.”

The potential threat Shell’s exploration plan poses to endangered bowhead whales was confirmed last summer when Shell monitoring studies showed that approximately one-third of the total population of bowhead whales were feeding and lingering in the planned exploration and drilling area during the summer. 

“Shell referring to America’s Arctic Ocean and Alaska Native subsistence whaling grounds as a future ‘Heartland’ for their oil drilling plans should be a wake up call to the American public and the communities of the Arctic,” said David Gordon, Executive Director for Pacific Environment.  “Shell has a legacy of pollution, aggressive development in whale habitat, and social disruption
in places like Nigeria and Russia’s Sakhalin Island; this pronouncement should be heralded as a warning.”

Groups challenging the exploration plan are the Alaska Wilderness League, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pacific Environment, Center for Biological Diversity, and Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL), and they are represented by Earthjustice.  The North Slope Borough and Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission have also challenged the drilling plan.