The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has published its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the Liberty Development and Production Plan in the Beaufort Sea Planning Area. The DPP proposes several steps. A man-made gravel production island, known as the Liberty Drilling and Production Island, would be established in Foggy Island Bay. Gravel for construction would come from a new mine west of the Kadleroshilik River. A pipeline would link the LDPI to the Badami Sales Oil Pipelin. The pipe-in-pipe pipeline would be buried along a route going south from the LPDI to the shoreline west of the Kadleroshilik River, transition to an above-ground pipeline, and continue south to tie into the existing Badami pipeline. Oil produced from the LDPI would be transported through the Badami pipeline to the existing common carrier pipeline system to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.
This NOI also serves to announce the beginning of the scoping process. The scope of an EIS refers to the range of issues, alternatives, and mitigation measures to be considered. Public scoping assists the agency in focusing on significant issues and alternatives and eliminating from detailed consideration those issues that are insignificant, irrelevant or have been fully and adequately considered in prior analyses. No alternatives, other than the no-action alternative, have yet been identified.
Comments should be submitted no later than November 24, 2015.
Click here to read Federal Register notice of BOEM’s proposed action.
