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OCR for page 150
10
Filling Knowledge Gaps
The Committee on Cumulative Environmental Effects
of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska's North Slope was
charged with identifying gaps in knowledge that hinder iden-
tification of cumulative effects and with assessing their
causes and importance. Those tasks were made more diffi-
cult because data were not always available or were not co-
ordinated or comprehensive, although much is known about
the region. This chapter discusses the shortcomings of the
data and ways to improve the collection and organization of
new information to help future assessments. Specific needs
to inform decisions about oil and gas activities on the North
Slope also are described.
A great deal of time and effort had been invested in
studying North Slope environments and assessing the effects
of oil and gas activities there. Some of the research recom-
mendations that follow are for new investigations, but many
of them represent a sharpening of the focus and the emphasis
of current efforts.
NEED FOR COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING
Decisions about the conditions for and requirements of
permitting industrial activities on the North Slope are made
by many federal, state, and municipal agencies. Communi-
cation and coordination among those agencies have been
weak and sporadic. Permitting decisions generally have been
made one case at a time without a comprehensive plan to
identify the scope, intensity, direction, or consequences of
industrial activities that are judged appropriate and desir-
able. Similarly, the minimal rehabilitation of disturbed habi-
tat has occurred without an overall plan to identify land-use
goals, objectives to achieve them, performance criteria, or
monitoring requirements. Little consideration has been given
to how different future trajectories would be viewed by dif-
ferent groups, including North Slope residents.
In particular, there has been no comprehensive estimate
of the costs of dismantlement and removal of infrastructure
150
and subsequent restoration and rehabilitation (DRR) of af-
fected North Slope areas. This is important because although
DRR is assumed in some permits and plans, it will almost
surely cost much more than the amount of money available.
Extrapolation from estimates for individual project plans
suggests a total cost of billions of dollars. However, existing
state and federal bonding requirements are not even remotely
sufficient to underwrite potential DRR costs on the North
Slope. Because the obligation to restore abandoned sites is
unclear and the financial resources to do so are so uncertain,
the committee judges it likely that, absent a change in those
constraints, most of the disturbed North Slope habitat will
never be rehabilitated or restored. What is needed is a slope-
wide land-use plan and an understanding of the likely costs
and effectiveness of various DRR approaches.
The quality, accessibility, and extent of data to evaluate
effects and their accumulation also is inadequate. In many
cases, the committee did obtain necessary data, and we are
grateful for the cooperation and efforts of state, federal, and
local governments; industry; environmental groups; indi-
vidual researchers; the North Slope Borough; and interested
members of the public. But often the committee had difficul-
ties in obtaining data it needed. Sometimes the data did not
exist, and other times the data were less useful than they
could have been. The reasons for these difficulties included
confidentiality, particularly for identifying the locations of
seismic exploration; a failure to analyze information from
agency or industry files; the lack of comparability of data
collected by various agencies; and the lack of long-term data
sets that could be used to assess or anticipate future accumu-
lating effects. For example, most of the data acquired from
water-quality monitoring programs, which are required by
discharge permits, are retained by the principal permitting
agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, and are not
readily available. Records also are kept by individual opera-
tors, but they are not summarized, and there are few annual
reports.
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FILLING KNOWLEDGE GAPS
Two kinds of comprehensive planning are needed to
overcome these shortcomings and to better explain and man-
age the environmental effects of oil and gas activities on
Alaska's North Slope and their accumulation. The first is for
a comprehensive slope-wide land-use plan to guide indus-
trial development and assist in planning for the eventual de-
parture of the oil and gas industry from the region. The plan
should identify land-use goals and specify restoration and
rehabilitation objectives to achieve them. It should include
specific performance criteria and monitoring requirements
tied to restoration and rehabilitation objectives, and it should
provide an inventory of current facilities and gravel fill, in-
cluding an assessment of the nature and extent of contamina-
tion. It should specifically include plans for decommission-
ing, abandonment, and restoration and rehabilitation once
oil and gas production is no longer viable. Even if changing
oil prices, new hydrocarbon discoveries, disintegrating in-
frastructure, changing political arrangements, and other un-
foreseen factors were to make such a plan obsolete before it
could be implemented, the exercises would provide a shared
vision of goals for the North Slope and help to identify areas
where knowledge is inadequate, and would thus help to guide
research and monitoring.
The second need is for a coordinated and comprehen-
sive research plan. This should include the following:
· A regional assessment of ecological and human val-
ues that have various degrees of sensitivity to disturbance
with a view to ranking their importance and the urgency of
addressing them.
.
~7
Important research questions developed through col-
laborative efforts of scientists, local communities, industry,
interested members of the public, and regulatory agencies.
· Identification of key indicators of environmental sta-
tus and trends and how they will be measured.
To increase the likelihood that the research would be of
the broadest usefulness in decision making and to have the
greatest scientific validity, the following approaches should
be incorporated into the research:
.
Traditional and local knowledge, especially informa-
tion gathered by subsistence hunters, should be incorporated
into the research plan at all stages of research, from study
design through interpretation and presentation of the results.
· Provision should be made for data gathered and man-
aged by various agencies to be comparable and accessible,
using the same units and standards of data quality wherever
possible. For example, geographic information systems
(GIS) are powerful planning tools to help in developing a
slope-wide land-management plan. A single site should be
established where data are stored and can be accessed.
· Where possible, a hypothesis to be tested should be
identified and appropriate controls established before data
are collected.
151
· Thorough, independent peer review should be con-
ducted at all stages of the research, from study design to
publication of results.
SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION NEEDS
Ecosystem-Level Research
Most ecological research in the Prudhoe Bay region has
focused on local studies of the behavior and population dy-
namics of animal species. Patterns and processes at landscape
scales, as well as nutrient cycling and energy flows, have re-
ceived relatively little attention. Nevertheless, the research that
has been done has identified the need for, and importance of,
studies of population dynamics over large areas and the need
to assess how industrial activities on the North Slope are
affecting the productivity of tundra ecosystems. Alterations
of flow patterns of water across the Arctic Coastal Plain,
thermokarsting of tundra adjacent to roads and off-road path-
ways, and changes of albedo attributable to dust are all likely
to influence plant community composition; rates of photosyn-
thesis and decomposition; and efficiencies of energy transfer
between plants, herbivores, and carnivores. Thus, tundra
within an oil field is likely to differ in many ways from that in
an unaffected ecosystem, yet the extent of the differences and
the processes that cause them are largely unknown.
To assess these differences, protected areas should be
established similar to those established by the National Sci-
ence Foundation's Long Term Ecological Research (LTER)
program, in comparable areas within and outside the indus-
trial complex and accessible to researchers. Currently the
LTER site closest to the area of concern is at Toolik Lake
site in the foothills of the Brooks Range, about 250 km to the
south. Long-term studies should be initiated to assess the
influence of industrial activities on fluxes of energy and nu-
trients in these systems. Particular attention should be paid
to those processes most likely to be altered with the objec-
tive of identifying ways to reduce the accumulation of unde-
sirable effects, whether by avoiding particularly vulnerable
areas or by adjusting the nature of activities to reduce the
degree to which ecosystem processes are affected.
Human-Health Effects
The effects of oil and gas activities on human health
have not been well documented. Some human-health effects
of encroachment of industrial civilization into Alaska Na-
tive communities are well known, such as the increased use
of alcohol and drugs, increased obesity, and other societal
ills. But on the North Slope, it is not possible with available
data to say to what degree they are the direct result of oil and
gas activities. Other concerns are widespread among Native
residents of the North Slope, including concerns about air
pollution, contamination of water and food, and noise. To
some unknown degree the increased financial resources from
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152
oil taxes and royalties have balanced adverse health effects
by significantly improving the quality and availability of
medical care on the North Slope. The human-health effects
of oil and gas activities constitute one of the areas in greatest
need of additional reliable information.
Offshore Oil Spills
The committee heard many comments indicating that
oil spills are a grave concern among North Slope residents,
especially the threat of a large offshore spill. Although there
have been no large oil spills in waters off the North Slope,
they are such a major concern that we make some comments
here about possible research into mitigating their effects, rec-
ognizing that this is somewhat beyond our charge. The re-
sults of such research would help to refine future assess-
ments of how the effects of major spills accumulate.
Considerable research has been done on methods of
cleaning up spills and on mitigating some of their effects
(see for example, Allen 1988, 1999, 2000; Lindstedt-Siva
1992; NRC 1989, 2003~. This committee has neither delib-
erated about the most important research topics for oil-spill
cleanup and mitigation, nor has it attempted to reach a con-
sensus on whether, when, and how experimental oil spills
might be used in such a research program. Nonetheless, re-
search in a variety of areas seems to be warranted, including
the use of noise to move bowhead whales and perhaps
other marine mammals away from areas affected by a spill.
It would also be useful to have the results of research on the
effectiveness and environmental liabilities and advantages
of nonmechanical methods of cleaning up oil spilled in the
sea (for example, dispersants, in-situ burning), especially in
broken-ice conditions. Such research might be of great value
in decision making and in formulating the comprehensive
plans that the committee identified as being needed.
Research and Human Communities
People and their communities interact with information
needs both as consultants and as subjects. As a result, infor-
mation about the accumulation of effects is missing or sparse
in several areas. Therefore, if better assessment is to occur,
the following areas need attention:
.
Research on the North Slope, regardless of its sub-
ject matter, should occur as a cooperative endeavor with lo-
cal communities. Traditional and local knowledge of the
physical environment, the biota, and the human communi-
ties on the North Slope is comprehensive and important. This
information should be incorporated into research efforts,
from the identification of topics and study design through
interpretation and presentation of results.
· Balancing economic benefits of oil and gas activities
against loss of traditional knowledge and language often is a
dilemma for North Slope residents. Research should identify
CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF ALASKA NORTH SLOPE OIL AND GAS
the specific lifestyle benefits and threats that North Slope
residents attach to oil and gas industrial activity. This re-
search should target how much oil and gas activities, as dis-
tinguished from other factors, are associated with increasing
sociocultural change.
· Research should establish how oil and gas activities
and their effects those deemed positive or negative have
influenced community and individual behavior.
· Research should identify the direct and indirect mon-
etary rewards and costs (including passive-use values) asso-
ciated with petroleum development on the North Slope. The
research should describe rewards and costs for North Slope
residents as well as for nonresidents, and it should qualita-
tively describe effects that cannot be converted to money.
· Research should be conducted on how to best man-
age effects of rapid social, economic, cultural, and spiritual
changes for the Inupiat and Gwich'in of the North Slope and
Alaska.
Zones of Influence
Technological developments have greatly reduced the
"footprint" of new industrial activities on the North Slope.
For example, horizontal drilling and pad refrigeration allow
well-heads to be spaced closely on smaller pads. The use of
ice roads allows exploration in the winter when its effects on
tundra vegetation are greatly reduced. Gravel pads generally
are now constructed only for successful exploration wells,
and many wells need not be served by permanent gravel
roads. Underground injection has eliminated the need for
reserve pits to accommodate wastes. Above-ground pipelines
are still required, however.
Clearly, those advances have greatly reduced the incre-
mental direct effects of new industrial activities on North
Slope environments and organisms. Nevertheless, the effects
of industrial activities are not limited to the footprints or
their immediate vicinity. The committee has identified a va-
riety of influences that extend varying distances from actual
facilities. They range from effects on animals that are attrib-
utable to gravel roads and pads and that extend up to a few
kilometers, to the influence of industrial structures on visual
aspects of the landscape, which can extend as far as 100 km
(60 ml).
The examples identified by the committee do not list all
of the ways that consequences of activities extend beyond
the physical footprint because there are no data to estimate
how, why, and to what distance many receptors could be
influenced. The full accumulation of the effects of oil and
gas activities to date, as well as in the future, cannot be as-
sessed without much better quantitative information about
the ways in which effects extend for varying distances.
Current activities should be studied to identify zones of
influence of industrial activities and structures on various
components of the North Slope environment. Future indus-
trial activities and structures should be studied to generate
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FILLING KNOWLEDGE GAPS
data showing how and why various receptors are affected by
those activities and the distances over which those effects
occur.
Air Contamination and its Effects
Air pollution on the North Slope is a concern to resi-
dents, and its effects could accumulate. There has been little
research to quantify the contribution of local emissions from
oil and gas facilities or to determine how local and regional
air masses and their contaminants interact. The lack of
predevelopment baseline data further hampers assessment
of locally and distantly produced pollution on North Slope
air quality.
No monitoring system (except for tracking of priority
pollutants from 1986 through 2002 at a limited number of
sites) has been established to provide a quantitative baseline
of spatial and temporal trends in North Slope air quality. The
lack of adequate information limits the accuracy and preci-
sion of assessments of past effects and predictions of future
accumulation of effects. Given local concerns about air qual-
ity and its perceived effects on human health, studies should
be undertaken to distinguish between locally derived emis-
sions and long-range transport, to determine how they inter-
act, and if necessary to monitor potential human exposure to
air contaminants.
Seismic Exploration and Other Off-Roacl Traffic
Networks of seismic and other off-road vehicle trails as
well as ice roads and ice pads cover extensive areas of the
tundra. They are a concern because of the damage they do to
vegetation and their visibility from the air. The development
of new seismic data-acquisition methods, such as light-
weight, rubber tracked equipment, might reduce the effects
of those activities by reducing the weight, tracks, or number
of vehicles used, but the degree to which tundra damage will
be reduced is unknown.
The current regulations governing minimum snow depth
(average 15 cm [6 in. and frost penetration (30 cm [12 in.
to allow seismic activities on the tundra are not based on re-
search and do not account for variations in snow depth caused
by topography or differential drifting. Thus, the degree of pro-
tection they provide to tundra is unknown. Much of the infor-
mation regarding the location of seismic activities is consid-
ered proprietary and is not available to researchers or the
public. This information is critical for determining the areas
affected and the long-term effects of these activities.
Studies of the effects and persistence of the trails of off-
road vehicles are needed, including their long-term visibility
from the air. Studies are needed to determine the amount of
snow and the frost penetration required to adequately protect
the tundra from the effects of seismic exploration.
Exploration is expanding beyond the current area of ac-
tivity, both southward into the foothills of the Brooks Range
153
and westward well into the National Petroleum Reserve-
Alaska (Chapter 5~. New areas for oil and gas exploration
are likely to differ substantially from current areas of activ-
ity. To understand, predict, and manage cumulative environ-
mental effects in the new areas, their environments need to
be characterized. This should include descriptions of topog-
raphy; permafrost conditions; sand, gravel, and water avail-
ability; hydrological conditions; and biotic communities.
Caribou and Bowheacl Whales
A better understanding is needed of the seasonal habitat
requirements of caribou, natural environment constraints,
details of the physiology of reproductive tradeoffs, and how
disturbance affects them in the Arctic.
Studies are needed to determine the qualitative relation-
ship between the noise generated by offshore operations and
the migratory and acoustic behavior of bowhead whales. The
studies should include analysis of the effects of multiple
noise sources. Better information is also needed about the
degree to which bowheads feed in the Alaskan portion of the
Beaufort Sea.
Consequences of Water Withdrawals
Water for ice roads, pads, and other purposes is taken
from lakes on the North Slope. Because most lakes in the
existing development area between the Colville and Saga-
vanirktok rivers are less than 1.8 m (6 ft) deep, and hence
freeze to the bottom, few fish are present and the impacts on
them have been minimal. As development spreads into re-
gions with deeper lakes, such as the Colville delta and the
eastern portion of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska,
there is greater potential to affect fish populations within
lakes. Under current Alaska Department of Fish and Game
policy, water withdrawals from fish-bearing lakes are lim-
ited to 15% of the estimated minimum water volume during
winter to retain most of the water for wintering fish. The
15% criterion was set arbitrarily in the absence of data to
support an alternative, and no research has been conducted
to determine what the effects of withdrawals are on popula-
tions of invertebrates in the lakes and, hence, food supplies
for vertebrates. As of late 2002 there were no restrictions on
removal of water from fishless lakes.
An initial study of the 15% criterion should determine
the degree to which that criterion prevents harm to fish and
invertebrates. A study of the effects of withdrawing water
from lakes without fish should be conducted to assess the
degree to which current water use affects biota associated
with these water bodies.
Dealing with Uncertainties
Actions undertaken to identify and reduce the undesir-
able effects of interactions among effecters and receptors
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154
should greatly improve the quality and quantity of data in fu-
ture decision making. However, the information will never be
sufficient to eliminate uncertainty in future problem solving.
Some species, such as marine mammals and fishes, are intrin-
sically difficult to study. Detecting even fairly important
changes in their population densities and demographic param-
eters could be impossible, no matter how much money is avail-
able to study them. Also, adequate controls could be impos-
sible to establish. Informative manipulations of populations of
rare and endangered species are legally constrained. Experi-
mental oil spills could be politically unacceptable. Distin-
guishing between changes attributable to specific oil and gas
activities and those that are the results of other causes is often
difficult because multiple factors typically influence the re-
ceptors of interest. Finally, there is uncertainty about refer-
ence states or conditions because of environmental factors,
such as climate change over time and space.
Some of the above problems cannot be solved, but sci-
entific uncertainty can be usefully described by an analysis
of the power of the statistical tests being used. When analyz-
ing data collected to test a hypothesis that X has an effect on
Y. two kinds of errors are possible. First, one can conclude
falsely that there is an effect when actually there is none (a
Type I error); second, one can conclude falsely that there is
no effect when actually there is one (a Type II error). The
likelihood of making either kind of error can be reduced by
appropriate analyses, but reducing the likelihood of making
one type of error always increases the likelihood of the other.
The only way to reduce the likelihood of making both kinds
of errors simultaneously is to have more data, either through
larger or more samples.
To assess the consequences of making a Type II error, it
is helpful to state the magnitude of the effect that could have
CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF ALASKA NORTH SLOPE OIL AND GAS
gone undetected. This is equivalent to asking, "If, on the
basis of a statistical test at a chosen significance level, it is
concluded that the action has no effect, then how large would
an effect have to be for the test to detect it?" The answer is
often that the magnitude of statistically undetectable effects
is much larger than anyone would have expected. This ques-
tion should be explicitly considered and described in design-
ing studies to assess the effects of activities already under-
taken and the likely consequences of proposed activities on
the North Slope. In addition, final results should be accom-
panied by a statement of the magnitude of effects that would
have escaped detection. Those uncertainties should be
clearly communicated to decision makers. More detailed
discussion of these and related topics is presented in work
by the National Research Council (1995) and Simberloff
(1990~.
No matter how much information would be desirable,
decisions often cannot be deferred. How, then, can the best
use be made of the information that is available to inform
decision making? This difficult challenge making environ-
mental decisions in the face of uncertainty was discussed
in detail (with a focus on the Endangered Species Act) by the
National Research Council (NRC 1995~. The general topic
of environmental decision making under uncertainty often
appears under the rubric of the precautionary principle,
which says in effect that when there is doubt one should err
on the side of the environmental resource. In practice, such
an admonition often is not helpful as a guide for making real
policy or management decisions. Precaution is a continuous
variable, and one person's precaution is another's reckless
disregard. The central problem is to characterize people's
valuation of risks and rewards and incorporate them into
frameworks for risk assessment and management.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
gas activities
