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The impact of industrial development on the arctic environment
Cold Regions Science and Technology, 7 (1983) 299--302 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam --Printed in The Netherlands
The Impact of Industrial Development on the Arctic Environment Geoffrey Larminie British Petroleum Company London
-- This paper does not represent the petroleum industry's viewpoint; it is based on the author's personal experience and involvement with the one existing m a j o r petroleum development in the non-Communist sector of the Arctic, n a m e l y the discovery and development of the Prudhoe Bay oil field and the Trans-Alaska pipeline. It is salutary to reflect that, to date, virtually all the available technical know-how and operational experience of large scale oil a n d / o r gas production operations in the Arctic comes from Alaska and the USSR. As we do not as yet have the environmental equivalent of Art Meyerhoff*, we have virtually no information on impacts from the Soviet Union and almost all our scientific and technical data on the environmental aspects of development in high latitudes comes from Canada, Scandinavia and Alaska. One final point: most of this data relates to onshore production operations; to date there are no large offshore fields in production in the Arctic Ocean, and the oil industry's practical experience of operations in these waters is derived from its exploration work. So far there have been no serious oil spillages associated with the exploration drilling so that contingency plans for dealing with such incidents under or adjacent to ice are largely hypothetical. However, that is not to say that these plans are without foundation for we have some experience from incidents in cold waters in high latitudes (e.g. northern Norway), and a n u m b e r of major co-operative research projects between industry
° See Meyerhoff's paper; ~Energy Resources of the Soviet Artic~ in section II 0165-232X/83/$03.00
and g o v e r n m e n t are in progress of which the Baffin Island Oil Spill Project is the best example. When the Prudhoe oil field was discovered and the decision to t r a n s p o r t the oil by pipeline from Prudhoe to Valdez was a n n o u n c e d the conservationists predicted the direct consequences. The oil field would destroy the last great wilderness and the pipeline would result in 800 miles of devastation extending from the caribou breeding grounds of the Arctic Coastal Plain in the North to the rich fishing grounds of the Valdez Arm and Prince William Sound in the South. The construction crews would destroy hundreds of spawning streams in the Interior; the hot oil would melt the permafrost, degrade the t u n d r a and destabilize the hillslopes; tankers and terminal operations would spill oil into the Valdez Arm and its approaches -- in short, the Alaskan wilderness was doomed. In the event, the development of the Prudhoe Field was subject to serious delays consequent upon the need to satisfy stringent conditions set down by the U.S.Government in response to a powerful, albeit emotional, environmental lobby, which itself was a unique (both in time and place) reflection of a sudden world-wide upsurge of concern for conservation of the environment. The matter was further complicated by a Federal injunction against any land leasing pending settlement of the Alaska Native Land Claims issue. Although the participants in the Prudhoe oil field and the Alyeska Pipeline C o m p a n y were poised to start development in 1969 -- and all 800 miles of 48 inch diameter pipe for the pipeline had been delivered to Alaska by October 1971 -- it was not until April 1974
© 1983 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.
299
that construction started. All through the period of delay work continued on further refining the design, compiling base-line data on the environment, additional testing of the pipe itself, detailed soil studies along the route, and much else. I t is estimated that these pre-construction costs of the Trans Alaska Pipeline alone amounted to 100 million dollars, and Alyeska have estimated the total delay costs at over two billion dollars. It is fair to say that by and large the prophets of doom have been confounded. The prediction by some naturalists that the oil field developments at Prudhoe would force the caribou to abandon the area was wrong and studies by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services confirm that this has not happened. Valdez Arm and its approaches have not been polluted by oil and the terminal has a very good operational record best exemplified by operations during 1981 when 735 tankers were loaded with almost 23 billion gallons of oil and only 8 gallons were spilled, However, it must be admitted that there have been several incidents on land of which those in the Atigun Pass, and North of Fairbanks were the most serious. At Atigun thaw resulted in unstable ground conditions which disturbed a buried section of the line set in a concrete ,,coffim, (a construction technique imposed on the owners) and as a result the pipe ruptured spilling an estimated 1500 gallons before the leak was detected. The spill was cleaned up, the line was repaired, and the site successfully restored. The spill near Fairbanks was the result of sabotage in 1978 when a hole was blown in the line and ca. 550,000 gallons of oil was spilled. The resulting massive clean-up operation proved highly effective, grass was grown, the site recolonized and the alders have now grown up to the mid-line of the pipe and there are birds everywhere. Thus it has been d e m o n s t r a t e d that the consequences of the inevitable accidents are at worst short-term and, provided there are first class contingency plans in place backed up by trained m a n p o w e r and all the necessary resources of equipment and expertise in site rehabilitation, there is no inherent reason to predicate that the exploitation of oil and gas in the Arctic will result in irreversible d a m a g e to the environment. Hand in hand with the developments in high latitudes, coupled with the consequent stimulus to extensive scientific study of the ecosystem, has come the realisation that the tundra is more robust than m a n y erstwhile experts predicted. In this context it is interesting to note that in the past eighteen 300
m o n t h s the author has attended a n u m b e r of major meetings and workshops (none of which were sponsored by the oil industry) without once hearing the epithet ,,fragile,~ applied to the tundra -- yet this word seemed to be on everybody's lips in the ten years following the discovery of oil at Prudhoe. New developments on land will essentially follow the pattern pioneered in Arctic Alaska for the Prudhoe and K u p a r u k oil fields and the Trans-Alaska pipeline and the m a j o r potential impacts associated with exploration and production are now pretty well appreciated. Geoglogieal surveys, seismic surveys, gravel extraction for pad construction (and later for road and site construction if hydrocarbons are discovered in commercial quantities), exploration drilling, production drilling, construction of production facilities, are all conducted in the context of a proper appreciation of the consequent stresses on the ecosystem. The techniques of remote sensing coupled with geobotanical mapping and appropriately designed ground-surveys which were developed from the T u n d r a Biome sector of the International Biological P r o g r a m m e (part of which was based on Prudhoe) are particularly applicable to the layout and siting of the surface facilities associated with the discovery of oil and gas onshore in the Arctic, and of course this also applies to the onshore installations which m a y be required in connection with an offshore discovery. The industry is now looking to the search for and production of hydrocarbons offshore in the Arctic and others in this proceedings have described the techniques of exploration drilling through a~tifically thickened ice and from gravel islands in considerable detail. The problems of producing oil from offshore fields in the Arctic (particularly in the deeper waters seawards of the land-fast ice) are considerable and m a n y of the problems have been identified and data-collection and/or research directed towards solving them is now in hand. What sort of information is required by an operator in the Arctic Ocean? The answer would include, but not necessarily be limited to, the following main headings: ice and ice conditions meteorology -- o c e a n o g r a p h y coastal geomorphology biological data -- archaeology anthropological and sociological data on the indigenous h u m a n population -
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There seems to be much u n n e c e s s a r y and unproductive a r g u m e n t current as to who should be responsible for providing this sort of base-line data which is an accepted pre-requisite for environmental impact assessments. G o v e r n m e n t s are accused of paying inadequate attention to their n o r t h e r n marches, of devoting insufficient resources for the scientific study of the Arctic, t a n t a m o u n t to neglect of their stewardship; oil companies are u n d e r pressure to provide and pay for all the missing information and all too quickly polarisation sets in and the end result is an unproductive confrontation. In the opinion of the author both parties have responsibilities and the most efficient way to discharge these is by co-operation. The BIOS (Baffin Island Oil Spill Study) previously referred to is a good example of w h a t can be done in a specific field, and in the broader field of environmental base-line studies the EAMES P r o g r a m m e (Eastern Arctic Marine Environmental Study) is an outstanding example. EAMES began in 1977 in response to oil industry interest in exploring for hydrocarbons in the eastern Canadian Arctic for which the Minister for Indian Affairs and Northern Development required a comprehensive environmental a s s e s s m e n t before drilling would be permitted. In 1981 Indian and Northern Affairs and the oil industry participants published a booklet entitled ,,The Achievements of an Environmental Programme,, describing the project, and the scientific results were published in a series of reports, and the whole of the March 1982 issue of Arctic (vol 35 No 1) was devoted to the results from the n o r t h e r n sector (Baffin Bay -- Lancaster Sound). The organisation and objectives of the prog r a m m e are set out in the 1981 booklet which states that ,,scientists mainly from the Federal D e p a r t m e n t s of Fisheries and Oceans, the Environment, and Indian Affairs and Northern Development co-operated with industry and local communities to develop a p r o g r a m of environmental field studies. The purpose of the p r o g r a m was to investigate the offshore and n e a r s h o r e waters and the marine life of this biologically-important area, to obtain sufficient data to prepare Environmental I m p a c t Statements (EIS),~. These documents would be submitted for review by panels established by the Federal Environmental A s s e s s m e n t Review Office (FEARO). Once under w a y the prog r a m m e was m a n a g e d by a joint federal/territorial g o v e r n m e n t and industry committee u n d e r the c h a i r m a n s h i p of the D e p a r t m e n t of Indian
Affairs and Northern Development. In addition an EAMES Advisory Board was set up comprising representatives of the eastern Arctic Communities and non- g o v e r n m e n t specialists to liaise with n o r t h e r n peoples and to provide an independent a s s e s s m e n t of the scientific work. All concerned with the future orderly development of Arctic resources would be well advised to familiarise themselves with this project which must r a n k as a very important precedent for environmental impact a s s e s s m e n t studies concerned with development a n y w h e r e in the Arctic w h e t h e r by g o v e r n m e n t or industry. To work in the Arctic involves a continuous learning process, and the lessons derived from field and operational experience must be applied and widely disseminated (this is w h y the rapid publication of the EAMES results is such a landmark). As base-line data, impact a s s e s s m e n t s and associated studies accumulate some c o m m o n denominators will be established to which the site-specific components can be added for individual developments. Above all it is important to accept that an environmental impact assessment is not a penalty (regretably there is still a corpus of opinion which regards it as an u n w a r r a n t e d imposition), but an important m a n a g e m e n t tool. By itself it is not enough and must be accompanied by a well designed monitoring p r o g r a m m e during construction and the early stages of operation, w h e r e b y one can make a m a t c h between performance and prediction. Experience in monitoring North Sea production operations (e.g. the Forties Field and the Sullom Voe Terminal in Shetland) have shown that effective low-cost monitoring can be achieved both offshore and in coastal waters. As time goes on, the objective of responsible operators in all industries, not just in the oil industry, must be to make the environmental element as endemic in m a n a g e m e n t philosophy as safety, so that such tools as impact assessment, monitoring, performance review and audit, and so on, are the rule rather than the exception. All of which involves an appreciation of the fact that m a n is a part of not apart from the ecosystem and as a potential modifer must take cognizance of his role in the flow of e n e r g y and nutrients which sustain the total system. That being so I believe it is quite within our capacity to undertake major development projects in an environmentally safe and acceptable m a n n e r in the Arctic and be justly proud of the results. In conclusion, it is worth reiterating and 301
expanding on a point touched on above. All who work in the Arctic, or indeed a n y w h e r e in the world, have a responsibility to share the environmental c o m p o n e n t of the knowledge of how things should or should not be done, and it is in the interests of us all that this environ-
302
mental expertise should never knowingly be withheld on spurious grounds of confidentiality. It is non-competitive information and it is a m e a s u r e of the importance of this concept that so much information has been given so freely at this conference. Long m a y it continue.
The Impact of Industrial Development on the Arctic Environment Geoffrey Larminie British Petroleum Company London
-- This paper does not represent the petroleum industry's viewpoint; it is based on the author's personal experience and involvement with the one existing m a j o r petroleum development in the non-Communist sector of the Arctic, n a m e l y the discovery and development of the Prudhoe Bay oil field and the Trans-Alaska pipeline. It is salutary to reflect that, to date, virtually all the available technical know-how and operational experience of large scale oil a n d / o r gas production operations in the Arctic comes from Alaska and the USSR. As we do not as yet have the environmental equivalent of Art Meyerhoff*, we have virtually no information on impacts from the Soviet Union and almost all our scientific and technical data on the environmental aspects of development in high latitudes comes from Canada, Scandinavia and Alaska. One final point: most of this data relates to onshore production operations; to date there are no large offshore fields in production in the Arctic Ocean, and the oil industry's practical experience of operations in these waters is derived from its exploration work. So far there have been no serious oil spillages associated with the exploration drilling so that contingency plans for dealing with such incidents under or adjacent to ice are largely hypothetical. However, that is not to say that these plans are without foundation for we have some experience from incidents in cold waters in high latitudes (e.g. northern Norway), and a n u m b e r of major co-operative research projects between industry
° See Meyerhoff's paper; ~Energy Resources of the Soviet Artic~ in section II 0165-232X/83/$03.00
and g o v e r n m e n t are in progress of which the Baffin Island Oil Spill Project is the best example. When the Prudhoe oil field was discovered and the decision to t r a n s p o r t the oil by pipeline from Prudhoe to Valdez was a n n o u n c e d the conservationists predicted the direct consequences. The oil field would destroy the last great wilderness and the pipeline would result in 800 miles of devastation extending from the caribou breeding grounds of the Arctic Coastal Plain in the North to the rich fishing grounds of the Valdez Arm and Prince William Sound in the South. The construction crews would destroy hundreds of spawning streams in the Interior; the hot oil would melt the permafrost, degrade the t u n d r a and destabilize the hillslopes; tankers and terminal operations would spill oil into the Valdez Arm and its approaches -- in short, the Alaskan wilderness was doomed. In the event, the development of the Prudhoe Field was subject to serious delays consequent upon the need to satisfy stringent conditions set down by the U.S.Government in response to a powerful, albeit emotional, environmental lobby, which itself was a unique (both in time and place) reflection of a sudden world-wide upsurge of concern for conservation of the environment. The matter was further complicated by a Federal injunction against any land leasing pending settlement of the Alaska Native Land Claims issue. Although the participants in the Prudhoe oil field and the Alyeska Pipeline C o m p a n y were poised to start development in 1969 -- and all 800 miles of 48 inch diameter pipe for the pipeline had been delivered to Alaska by October 1971 -- it was not until April 1974
© 1983 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.
299
that construction started. All through the period of delay work continued on further refining the design, compiling base-line data on the environment, additional testing of the pipe itself, detailed soil studies along the route, and much else. I t is estimated that these pre-construction costs of the Trans Alaska Pipeline alone amounted to 100 million dollars, and Alyeska have estimated the total delay costs at over two billion dollars. It is fair to say that by and large the prophets of doom have been confounded. The prediction by some naturalists that the oil field developments at Prudhoe would force the caribou to abandon the area was wrong and studies by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services confirm that this has not happened. Valdez Arm and its approaches have not been polluted by oil and the terminal has a very good operational record best exemplified by operations during 1981 when 735 tankers were loaded with almost 23 billion gallons of oil and only 8 gallons were spilled, However, it must be admitted that there have been several incidents on land of which those in the Atigun Pass, and North of Fairbanks were the most serious. At Atigun thaw resulted in unstable ground conditions which disturbed a buried section of the line set in a concrete ,,coffim, (a construction technique imposed on the owners) and as a result the pipe ruptured spilling an estimated 1500 gallons before the leak was detected. The spill was cleaned up, the line was repaired, and the site successfully restored. The spill near Fairbanks was the result of sabotage in 1978 when a hole was blown in the line and ca. 550,000 gallons of oil was spilled. The resulting massive clean-up operation proved highly effective, grass was grown, the site recolonized and the alders have now grown up to the mid-line of the pipe and there are birds everywhere. Thus it has been d e m o n s t r a t e d that the consequences of the inevitable accidents are at worst short-term and, provided there are first class contingency plans in place backed up by trained m a n p o w e r and all the necessary resources of equipment and expertise in site rehabilitation, there is no inherent reason to predicate that the exploitation of oil and gas in the Arctic will result in irreversible d a m a g e to the environment. Hand in hand with the developments in high latitudes, coupled with the consequent stimulus to extensive scientific study of the ecosystem, has come the realisation that the tundra is more robust than m a n y erstwhile experts predicted. In this context it is interesting to note that in the past eighteen 300
m o n t h s the author has attended a n u m b e r of major meetings and workshops (none of which were sponsored by the oil industry) without once hearing the epithet ,,fragile,~ applied to the tundra -- yet this word seemed to be on everybody's lips in the ten years following the discovery of oil at Prudhoe. New developments on land will essentially follow the pattern pioneered in Arctic Alaska for the Prudhoe and K u p a r u k oil fields and the Trans-Alaska pipeline and the m a j o r potential impacts associated with exploration and production are now pretty well appreciated. Geoglogieal surveys, seismic surveys, gravel extraction for pad construction (and later for road and site construction if hydrocarbons are discovered in commercial quantities), exploration drilling, production drilling, construction of production facilities, are all conducted in the context of a proper appreciation of the consequent stresses on the ecosystem. The techniques of remote sensing coupled with geobotanical mapping and appropriately designed ground-surveys which were developed from the T u n d r a Biome sector of the International Biological P r o g r a m m e (part of which was based on Prudhoe) are particularly applicable to the layout and siting of the surface facilities associated with the discovery of oil and gas onshore in the Arctic, and of course this also applies to the onshore installations which m a y be required in connection with an offshore discovery. The industry is now looking to the search for and production of hydrocarbons offshore in the Arctic and others in this proceedings have described the techniques of exploration drilling through a~tifically thickened ice and from gravel islands in considerable detail. The problems of producing oil from offshore fields in the Arctic (particularly in the deeper waters seawards of the land-fast ice) are considerable and m a n y of the problems have been identified and data-collection and/or research directed towards solving them is now in hand. What sort of information is required by an operator in the Arctic Ocean? The answer would include, but not necessarily be limited to, the following main headings: ice and ice conditions meteorology -- o c e a n o g r a p h y coastal geomorphology biological data -- archaeology anthropological and sociological data on the indigenous h u m a n population -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
There seems to be much u n n e c e s s a r y and unproductive a r g u m e n t current as to who should be responsible for providing this sort of base-line data which is an accepted pre-requisite for environmental impact assessments. G o v e r n m e n t s are accused of paying inadequate attention to their n o r t h e r n marches, of devoting insufficient resources for the scientific study of the Arctic, t a n t a m o u n t to neglect of their stewardship; oil companies are u n d e r pressure to provide and pay for all the missing information and all too quickly polarisation sets in and the end result is an unproductive confrontation. In the opinion of the author both parties have responsibilities and the most efficient way to discharge these is by co-operation. The BIOS (Baffin Island Oil Spill Study) previously referred to is a good example of w h a t can be done in a specific field, and in the broader field of environmental base-line studies the EAMES P r o g r a m m e (Eastern Arctic Marine Environmental Study) is an outstanding example. EAMES began in 1977 in response to oil industry interest in exploring for hydrocarbons in the eastern Canadian Arctic for which the Minister for Indian Affairs and Northern Development required a comprehensive environmental a s s e s s m e n t before drilling would be permitted. In 1981 Indian and Northern Affairs and the oil industry participants published a booklet entitled ,,The Achievements of an Environmental Programme,, describing the project, and the scientific results were published in a series of reports, and the whole of the March 1982 issue of Arctic (vol 35 No 1) was devoted to the results from the n o r t h e r n sector (Baffin Bay -- Lancaster Sound). The organisation and objectives of the prog r a m m e are set out in the 1981 booklet which states that ,,scientists mainly from the Federal D e p a r t m e n t s of Fisheries and Oceans, the Environment, and Indian Affairs and Northern Development co-operated with industry and local communities to develop a p r o g r a m of environmental field studies. The purpose of the p r o g r a m was to investigate the offshore and n e a r s h o r e waters and the marine life of this biologically-important area, to obtain sufficient data to prepare Environmental I m p a c t Statements (EIS),~. These documents would be submitted for review by panels established by the Federal Environmental A s s e s s m e n t Review Office (FEARO). Once under w a y the prog r a m m e was m a n a g e d by a joint federal/territorial g o v e r n m e n t and industry committee u n d e r the c h a i r m a n s h i p of the D e p a r t m e n t of Indian
Affairs and Northern Development. In addition an EAMES Advisory Board was set up comprising representatives of the eastern Arctic Communities and non- g o v e r n m e n t specialists to liaise with n o r t h e r n peoples and to provide an independent a s s e s s m e n t of the scientific work. All concerned with the future orderly development of Arctic resources would be well advised to familiarise themselves with this project which must r a n k as a very important precedent for environmental impact a s s e s s m e n t studies concerned with development a n y w h e r e in the Arctic w h e t h e r by g o v e r n m e n t or industry. To work in the Arctic involves a continuous learning process, and the lessons derived from field and operational experience must be applied and widely disseminated (this is w h y the rapid publication of the EAMES results is such a landmark). As base-line data, impact a s s e s s m e n t s and associated studies accumulate some c o m m o n denominators will be established to which the site-specific components can be added for individual developments. Above all it is important to accept that an environmental impact assessment is not a penalty (regretably there is still a corpus of opinion which regards it as an u n w a r r a n t e d imposition), but an important m a n a g e m e n t tool. By itself it is not enough and must be accompanied by a well designed monitoring p r o g r a m m e during construction and the early stages of operation, w h e r e b y one can make a m a t c h between performance and prediction. Experience in monitoring North Sea production operations (e.g. the Forties Field and the Sullom Voe Terminal in Shetland) have shown that effective low-cost monitoring can be achieved both offshore and in coastal waters. As time goes on, the objective of responsible operators in all industries, not just in the oil industry, must be to make the environmental element as endemic in m a n a g e m e n t philosophy as safety, so that such tools as impact assessment, monitoring, performance review and audit, and so on, are the rule rather than the exception. All of which involves an appreciation of the fact that m a n is a part of not apart from the ecosystem and as a potential modifer must take cognizance of his role in the flow of e n e r g y and nutrients which sustain the total system. That being so I believe it is quite within our capacity to undertake major development projects in an environmentally safe and acceptable m a n n e r in the Arctic and be justly proud of the results. In conclusion, it is worth reiterating and 301
expanding on a point touched on above. All who work in the Arctic, or indeed a n y w h e r e in the world, have a responsibility to share the environmental c o m p o n e n t of the knowledge of how things should or should not be done, and it is in the interests of us all that this environ-
302
mental expertise should never knowingly be withheld on spurious grounds of confidentiality. It is non-competitive information and it is a m e a s u r e of the importance of this concept that so much information has been given so freely at this conference. Long m a y it continue.