MEMO: What's at stake with ConocoPhillips' Willow project in the Western Arctic
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA -- The federal Bureau of Land Management today released its draft environmental impact statement on ConocoPhillips’ proposed Willow Master Development Plan—which, if approved, would lead to a massive new oil-development project in the Western Arctic’s National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Despite the long-term environmental and climate impacts of the proposed project—and the Trump administration’s failure to adequately assess those impacts—the agency is allowing the public only 45 days to comment on a development that would unleash massive amounts of climate-warming greenhouse gases for decades.
As you may recall, U.S. District Court of Alaska Judge Sharon Gleason ruled last summer that the Trump administration failed to evaluate the project’s negative impacts on wildlife and the impact that burning so much oil would have on the world’s climate. The ruling voided permits that had been issued during Trump’s term.
Since then, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and ConocoPhillips have worked to revise a plan for the $6 billion development project.
For the protection of the world’s climate and to safeguard the health and safety of remote communities in the region, it is critical that the DOI take the time to do an exceptionally rigorous assessment of the proposed oil and gas development. Simply “touching up” details of the old analysis would be unacceptable.
A carbon bomb
The Willow Project alone is estimated by BLM to add more than 250 million metric tons of CO2 to the atmosphere over the next 30 years, if approved, and would likely spur additional oil development in the Western Arctic by building roads, pipelines, and processing facilities that make future projects feasible.
“No other oil and gas project has greater potential to undermine the Biden administration’s climate goals,” said Karlin Itchoak, Alaska state director for The Wilderness Society. “If this project were to move forward, it would result in the production and burning of at least 30 years of oil at a time when the world needs climate solutions and a transition to clean energy.”
Overall, the Western Arctic houses enough fossil fuels that, if burned, would equal more than double the carbon emissions of burning all the oil that the Keystone XL pipeline would have carried over its 50-year lifespan.
Additionally, the Willow Project would likely spur additional oil development in the Western Arctic by building roads, pipelines, and processing facilities that make future projects feasible. Given the climate crisis, the world simply cannot afford for that to happen.
Ground zero for climate change
The Arctic is ground zero for climate change, where temperatures are rising two to four times faster than the rest of the planet. Villages are eroding into the sea, thawing permafrost is making infrastructure insecure and food sources are disappearing.
At approximately 23 million acres, BLM lands in the Western Arctic make up the largest single remaining unit of wild public land in America—bigger than 10 Yellowstone National Parks, and nearly the size of the state of Indiana.
It is the cultural homeland and subsistence area for Alaska Native communities and supports robust, wild ecosystems and resources on which those communities depend: Caribou, geese, loons, salmon, polar bears and bowhead whales.
If approved, the Willow Master Development Plan would involve the globally unique Teshekpuk Lake Special Area. For decades, this area has been protected and recognized for its ecological importance to millions of migratory birds, and serves as the calving ground and insect relief area for one of the region’s four caribou herds.
By producing tens of millions of barrels of oil every year for 30 years, the Willow project would accelerate the climate crisis and lead to devastating consequences for wildlife, water resources and subsistence hunting in the Arctic.
BLM has an obligation to thoroughly and accurately analyze climate effects, not to paper over Willow’s climate impacts by ignoring science.
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The Wilderness Society is the leading conservation organization uniting people to care for America’s wild places. Founded in 1935, and now with more than one million members and supporters, The Wilderness Society has led the effort to permanently protect 111 million acres of wilderness and to ensure sound management of our shared national lands. www.wilderness.org.
