THE LIBERTY PROJECT
The Center for Biological Diversity is calling on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to permanently call off BP’s plans for a massive new drilling operation in Alaska’s Arctic, dubbed "Liberty."
Relying on dangerous and untested technologies, BP hopes to drill the world’s longest horizontal well off the Alaska coast. The plan is far from foolproof and, as with BP’s Gulf project, the federal agency that oversees oil activities in Alaska has been far too cozy with the oil companies. In fact, the Interior Department allowed BP to write much of the environmental review for this risky project.
And if something were to go wrong at Liberty — which sits in the heart of threatened polar bear country — BP simply does not have the ability to deal with it. No one does. There is not the infrastructure or technology to deal with an oil spill in the Arctic. BP’s drilling location is so extremely remote that the nearest Coast Guard station is 1,000 miles away. There’s also no technology for cleaning oil on ice, and the poor visibility and frequent storms in the Arctic would make responding to a spill extremely difficult.
BP has suspended work on the project, estimated at $1 billion, but the Center will continue to monitor and fight the project if it’s resurrected.
Read more in The New York Times and other media outlets.
Take action: Don't let BP play Russian Roulette with the Arctic.
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