There was quite a bit of political wrangling and legal maneuvering leading up to this, but it seems that the federal Minerals Management Service has granted Royal Dutch Shell (Shell Oil to you and me) rights to drill off the Alaskan shore in the Beaufort Sea. Though Shell still needs an air permit to drill from the Environmental Protection Agency, this was a major hurdle for Shell to clear to wade into the water and find oil. Environmentalists, as you might imagine, aren’t thrilled. From the New York Times:

Environmental groups said they were disappointed by the decision and criticized the government for endorsing a leasing rush that was sanctioned by the Bush administration. Several groups said that Shell’s drilling would emit tons of air pollutants and water waste, and that it risked damaging the environment.

(continued quote from NYT…)

M.M.S. is again trying to implement an overly aggressive Bush-era drilling plan in one of the riskiest areas on the planet to drill,” said Whit Sheard, the Alaska program director at Pacific Environment. “Although fishermen, traditional indigenous communities, the courts and the global scientific community have all condemned this plan, the Arctic continues to be treated like a sacrifice zone.

“Sacrifice zone” might be a little intense, but you get the point. Now Shell must suspend exploration during the period of time where native villagers go whale-hunting (true story), and also has considerably “scaled back the size of its drilling fleet, which its opponents have characterized as an ‘armada,’ and now plans to use just one drill ship instead of two, and fewer support vessels.” But, even with that, the specter of an oil spill is ever-present. Says Chuck Clusen, the director for the national parks and Alaska projects at the Natural Resources Defense Council,

The reality of offshore oil drilling is that accidents will happen,” he said. “And when oil spills in Arctic ice, there is no cleaning it up. A blow-out like the one that recently despoiled waters off the coast of Australia would leave oil in the waters off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for decades, killing whales, seals, fish and birds and turning irreplaceable spawning and feeding grounds into an ecological wasteland.

Drilling these days is safer and more environmentally sound, but that doesn’t mean that allowing drilling in the pristine Beaufort Sea is a good idea. Just another reason to pass a climate change bill where we can find alternative sources of energy so we don’t have to do things like this.

photo credit: zieak’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons