Army Corps OKs road for Conoco project in Alaska reserve

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last Friday quietly approved an 8-mile access road for a drilling project that would be the first to produce oil from the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A). The Army Corps' record of decision allows ConocoPhillips Co. to continue pursuing its Greater Mooses Tooth project, known as GMT1, to drill up to 33 development and injection wells at an 11.8-acre drilling pad in the northeastern corner of the 22.5-million-acre NPR-A. The Bureau of Land Management still must give final approval for the project. The Clean Water Act permit "incorporates all practicable avoidance and minimization measures" and allows up to 73 acres of waters and wetlands to be filled, the corps said.
"The authorization includes special conditions to further avoid and minimize potential adverse impacts and to compensate for unavoidable adverse impacts to the aquatic ecosystem," the corps said. The approval follows BLM's decision last October to issue a final environmental impact statement (EIS) on the project offering tentative final approval of the project...more