Month: June 2019

Talking up Resilient Arctic Water Infrastructure in Nevada

What was I doing in the plush Nugget Casino in the 90 degree heat of Sparks, Nevada last month talking about improving Water Infrastructure through Resilient Adaptation of Alaska Native Village Communities in the North Bering Sea region? Because while the room full of water Geeks attending the summer specialty conference of the American Water Resources Association, were familiar with all the news coverage about super hurricanes and flooding on the east coast, they probably were not that familiar with the plight of communities in the North Bering Sea region (NBSR) of Alaska who are dealing with similar threats to their water infrastructure.

Arctic communities are have been experiencing increased permafrost melt, loss of sea ice, extreme weather events, flooding and erosion that may make current residences and settlements uninhabitable in the near future. Such communities have another thing in common with coastal cities on the east coast-they are in direct competition for limited federal disaster and hazard mitigation funding to defend against the inevitable march or climate change. In many cases, for example, agencies require cost-benefit analysis, plans, environmental analysis, or other measures above and beyond analysis or strategies contained in Hazard Mitigation Plans (HMPs) or other plans before such communities qualify to apply for funds. Similarly, because standard arctic community HMPs do not contain a detailed cost-benefit analysis of natural hazards affecting water resources, such communities cannot obtain high rankings that larger cities can to qualify for competitive funding or other federal or state assistance needed to address such impacts. Finally, the villages cannot afford to hire consultants or even staff to conduct climate adaption planning on behalf of such communities to include more meaningful consideration of economic impacts and risks associated with coastal water resource management resiliency strategies, in order to move beyond the planning phase and into on the ground project implementation.

During my talk at the conference, therefore, I emphasized the need to conduct economic risk-benefit and environmental analysis and otherwise close the gap between Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other governmental funding and technical assistance programs such so that North Bering Sea communities can implement on-the-ground projects that will address the Villages’ climate-related coastal water resources management challenges. Hopefully, word will travel to the ears of these agencies so that tribes in the Arctic can move behind the planning phase and into project implementation…something the needs to happen…yesterday.

 

Unique Arctic Freshwaters Biodiversity Threatened by Climate Change, Says Report

According to “The State of the Arctic Freshwater Biodiversity Report,” released by the Arctic Council’s Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna program at the May 7 at the Arctic Council ministerial in Rovaniemi, Finland, the range of species across the area is heading toward a period of dramatic changes including replacement of many fresh water fish by other species venturing in from southern waters. The report urges decision makers related to management of the Arctic fishery habitat to prepare effectively for an uncertain future.

Although in some cases, as Arctic lakes, rivers and wetlands warm [Across the Arctic, lake ice is melting out earlier in the spring], they could experience an increase in species, this shift is expected to come with a reduction in the habitat range of cold-tolerant species usually found in the Arctic, the report said. [High Arctic Char are in a losing battle with climate change]. This will ultimately result in “a net loss of unique Arctic-specific biodiversity,” the report said.

According to the report, some of these changes may induce “sudden biological shifts with strong repercussions.” Non-climate stressors such as long-range transboundary air pollutants and those originating from industrial development and urbanization, fisheries over-harvesting, dams and other forms of development can exacerbate climate related temperature by leading to “substantial habitat fragmentation and destruction.”

The report, among other actions, recommends engaging local communities in monitoring efforts through “citizen science” efforts. The Arctic Council report was released on the heals of ominous warnings by the United Nations human actions threaten more species globally.

The Trump administration continues its push for offshore Arctic oil development

Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur RossIn U.S. District Court in Anchorage recently, filed notice that they are appealing the March 29 ruling that threw out Trump’s executive action reopening closed Arctic and Atlantic waters to oil leasing.

In that ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason said Trump violated the law with a 2017 executive order that reversed President Obama’s actions withdrawing most U.S. Arctic waters and portions of the Atlantic Ocean from the federal offshore oil and gas leasing program. Presidents have the right under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to withdraw areas from leasing, but adding areas to the leasing program requires Congressional action, Gleason said in her ruling.

The ruling erected a new hurdle to a planned 2019 Beaufort Sea lease sale and threw the Trump administration’s entire five-year leasing plan into question

Trump Administration’s Alaska ANWR Strategy Hits Speed-Bump

Memos drafted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service identifying outdated vegetation maps and studies of the impact of oil development on caribou, insufficient air quality modeling, and studies of the impacts of the development on Polar bears, could expose the Trump administration to litigation. The memos were hidden from public view until environmentalist published them the day before the comment period ended on the Trump administration’s draft study of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The significance of the USFWS comments are the legal leverage they will provide to environmental groups who have vehemently opposed drilling in ANWR and will not be able to resist the administration’s criticism of it’s own plan to challenge the leasing plan in federal court.

According to Dermat Cole, an Artic Today columnist “It’s ironic that ever since the approval by Congress in late 2017 of oil leasing in ANWR, the biggest threat to oil leasing in ANWR has been the Trump administration. It’s willingness to cut corners to make oil drilling a reality before the next shift in the political winds in Washington, D.C. has come at the expense of the careful analysis required by law.”

Because the Obama administration, did not study the relationship of the issues raised in the comments because there was no chance of oil and gas drilling taking place in ANWR, the lack of such analysis is the primary weakness in the Trump plan.

Yet, the Trump administration has only compounded the potential for legal violations of drilling in ANWR by rushing the drilling proposal through the required rigorous environmental review due to potential threats to water quality and critical habitat, by planning to start auctioning off oil leases within a few months. In record time to assess the complex and potentially irreversible impacts on endangered species including caribou and polar bear, in a recent speech at the annual conference of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, Joe Balash, Interior’s assistant secretary for land and minerals management said the environmental impact statement for ANWR coastal plain leasing drafted by the Bureau of Land Management, will be followed by a final environmental impact statement “by the end of this summer… And once we have a final EIS we’ll be in a position to issue a record of decision and notice of lease sale. And that lease sale will happen in 2019.”

Pointing out that federal agencies typically take much longer than a few months to address public comments on a draft EIS, Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League says that “[i]n the history of environmental reviews, there’s been nothing like this” and that the BLM’s record breaking short timeline for ANWR “They’ll be very vulnerable to legal challenges.