Posted on 06/02/2015 8:10:10 AM PDT by thackney
In what is likely the final action in a lengthy environmental lawsuit against ConocoPhillips’ CD-5 project on the North Slope, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason denied the plaintiff’s final motion for a summary judgment to invalidate the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Record of Decision and permits for the project.
The suit was filed in 2013 by several residents of Nuiqsut, a nearby Inupiat village. The project itself, a satellite of the producing Alpine oil field near the Colville River, has been under construction since 2013 and is nearing completion.
Although Gleason ruled in 2014 that the Corps did not adequately justify its permit for CD-5, she refused to issue an injunction that would have halted construction.
ConocoPhillips spokeswoman Natalie Lowman said CD-5 will begin production as scheduled in December, and will produce about 16,000 barrels per day at peak production. About 700 people were employed in construction on CD-5 over the past two winter seasons, Lowman said.
Drilling has also started on production wells, she said. The cost of the project is about $1.1 billion for ConocoPhillips and its minority partner, Anadarko Petroleum Corp.
“We are pleased with the court’s decision. Construction of CD-5 is almost complete,” Lowman said, “and we expect to see first production in the fourth quarter of 2015.”
In a statement, Trustees for Alaska, an environmental law firm representing the plaintiffs, said the permits approved by the court allow ConocoPhillips to build multiple bridges and a six-mile-long road between CD-5 and the Alpine facilities .
“The project runs directly through sensitive fishing and hunting areas for the residents of Nuiqsut. The Colville River Delta is the largest and most complex delta in the Arctic Coastal Plain,” the statement said.
Sam Kunaknana, a Nuiqsut resident and lead plaintiff in the case, said, “I am very unhappy with the decision. This development is in the heart of our most important hunting and fishing areas. The high embankments make the road impassable, and prevented me from hunting for seal this winter.”
In her decision, Gleason said the Corps made a reasoned evaluation of changes to the CD-5 project configuration since the agency’s Record of Decision was issued. The changes were the basis of the plaintiffs’ 2013 challenge. The Corps review met the legal requirements, so no further environmental evaluation is required, the judge ruled.
Although the plaintiffs were from Nuiqsut village, Kuukpik Corp., the village corporation at Nuiqsut, sided with ConocoPhillips and the Corps and against the plaintiffs in the case. All residents of Nuiqsuit including the plaintiffs are shareholders in Kuukpik.
Also, Arctic Slope Regional Corp., the Alaska Native regional corporation for the North Slope, sided with ConocoPhillips and the Corps. ASRC owns the subsurface mineral rights at CD-5 and will receive oil production royalties that will be shared with Kuukpik Corp. and, under terms of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, all other Native regional and village corporations in the state.
$$$$................
Question for the legal eagles out there: When a company who has oil leases is being sued, do the leases “toll” (stop running) during the course of any injuction or legal hold-up? Or does taking a company to court bring the leases closer to expiration while the case is in progress?
There is no way you could stop an oil well just by filing suit, or the suits would never stop. They would have to win a lawsuit.
Thanks for posting. Indeed this seems to be the actions of a few not the entire village. I can’t believe, in other words, that not a few men from that village found jobs generated by the construction and operation of this facility. But that’s not important I guess for those with an agenda (read extreme environmental agenda).
10 years ago, I attended public hearings for this facility in Anchorage. I was on the preliminary design team. It has been held up that long.
The leaders of the village were clear back then. They wanted this development. Part of the deal includes better access for the village and a Natural Gas pipeline from the Alpine Central Processing Facility.
They will have better access to permanent jobs. This puts a bridge across the western branch of Colville River. When I was doing work up in Alpine a decade ago, a few natives from this village worked in Alpine. They had to take a small plane to commute out each week.
I suppose the nuts were either nature freaks or paid eco-activsts from SierraClub-GreenPeace-NatureConservancy-ELF types................
That doesn’t quite answer my question. In a situation with running wells, a suit wouldn’t make any difference to operations while it was pending, unless the judge specifically issued an injunction.
Here, the case is holding up the whole project from even being started, as I understand it. So, the lease is prevented from being used. Does its term get extended? I think the answer is no.
By the way, this specific facility is normally unmanned. Workers stay at Alpine then travel out to CD2, CD3, CD4 and now CD5 for maintenance type work, but the gathering facility operates without operators on site.
That said, there is normally people there every day, including inspections.
Correct, in this case, the lease is with the Federal Government, and the Federal Government issues the permits. Permits were held up. Leases were extended if I remember correctly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.