Ocean Sentry
The U.S. Department of the Interior took a dangerous and disappointing leap towards drilling in the remote and fragile waters of America’s Arctic Ocean today. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) approved a plan by Shell Oil to conduct the first drilling in the harsh and remote Arctic Ocean since the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. Under this plan, Shell would start drilling in the Beaufort Sea in summer 2012.
Shell’s drilling risks a major oil spill, and neither Shell nor the government could respond adequately to such a catastrophe. It risks harming the endangered bowhead whale, a species central to Alaska American Indian subsistence traditions. Today’s decision to rubber-stamp Shell’s drilling ignores many of the lessons of the Gulf tragedy and the recommendations of government scientists and puts the Arctic Ocean and its coastal communities at great risk…. Source: Center for Biological Diverstity
