Opinion ID: 1314438
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Geophysical Hazard Areas

Text: The ACMP regulation applicable to geophysical hazard areas provides: (a) Districts and state agencies shall identify known geophysical hazard areas and areas of high development potential in which there is a substantial possibility that geophysical hazards may occur. (b) Development in areas identified under (a) of this section may not be approved by the appropriate state or local authority until siting, design, and construction measures for minimizing property damage and protecting against loss of life have been provided. 6 AAC 80.050. There are thus two potentially applicable regulatory commands. The first is that areas with known or substantially possible geophysical hazards be identified. The second is that development in such areas not be approved unless adequate protective measures have been provided. Trustees are concerned specifically with those geophysical hazards associated with earthquakes. Trustees argue that DNR's failure to identify specific faults in Camden Bay makes it impossible to tailor a sale to reduce the seismic risks by, for example, excluding lease tracts along major fault lines. Trustees' argument continues: If a company purchases a lease in a seismically active area, undertakes the expense of exploration, and determines that producible quantities of oil are present, both DNR and the company may find it difficult to slow the momentum to produce. With geophysical hazard areas identified before the sale, both DNR and the oil companies would be able to internalize the added risks, thereby increasing the likelihood that sales, explorations and production will occur in more seismically stable areas. DNR replies that it identified the entire Sale 50 area as a geophysical hazard area. [4] DNR thus argues that 6 AAC 80.050 will be complied with so long as development is not approved until siting, design and construction measures for minimizing property damage and protecting against loss of life have been provided for. In addition, the leases stipulate that the lessees must submit a detailed plan of operations for approval before conducting exploratory or development work. These plans must identify specific measures to meet specific geophysical hazards which may exist at the development site. Trustees counter that identification of the entire sale area as an area of known geophysical hazard makes a mockery of the regulation and that DNR should undertake seismic studies prior to the sale to identify particular areas having special hazards. The regulation does not support Trustees' contention that DNR should have undertaken seismic studies to determine areas of particular hazard within the sale area. The regulation limits the duty of the appropriate state agency to identifying known or, as to areas of high development potential, substantially possible hazard areas. This clearly implies a duty to conduct a survey of available sources concerning hazards in the sale area and to report the results of such a survey, but it excludes a requirement to conduct field studies. DNR's summary statement that the entire Sale 50 area is a known geophysical hazard does not satisfy the regulatory requirements. We have already recognized that Sale 50 triggered the regulatory requirement of a conclusive ACMP consistency determination. Trustees I, 795 P.2d at 811-12. DNR therefore had the duty to determine whether the sale of oil and gas leases was consistent with the ACMP. The ACMP has, among its objectives, protecting numerous environmental and cultural values in Alaska's coastal zone. AS 46.40.020. As we have elsewhere had occasion to note, the ACMP's standards are extremely protective of the environment. Hammond, 645 P.2d at 761. Offshore areas are among the habitats subject to the Alaska coastal management program. 6 AAC 80.130(a)(1). Such habitats must be managed so as to maintain or enhance the biological, physical, and chemical characteristics of the habitat which contribute to its capacity to support living resources. 6 AAC 80.130(b) (emphasis added). Uses or activities that fail to maintain or enhance the habitat's capacity to support living resources may be authorized only if several stringent additional conditions are met. [5] 6 AAC 80.130(d). Given these strongly protective standards, it cannot be said that the decision to sell leases will invariably and automatically be consistent with the ACMP. The geophysical hazards in a given area could be such as to make any use or activity inconsistent with the ACMP. Where detailed knowledge is available, indiscriminate and conclusory identification of an entire sale area as a geophysical hazard area does not suffice to comply with 6 AAC 80.050(a). [6] In addition, deferring a careful and detailed look at particularized geophysical hazards to later stages of the development process, as DNR evidently intends, entails certain practical risks. [7] First, DNR's method means that particularized geophysical hazards will be considered on a lease-site-by-lease-site basis. This may tend to mask appreciation of any cumulative environmental threat that would otherwise be apparent if DNR began with a detailed and comprehensive identification of those hazards. [8] Second, as we noted in Trustees for Alaska v. Gorsuch, 835 P.2d 1239, 1246 n. 6 (Alaska 1992), the more segmented an assessment of environmental hazards, the greater the risk that prior permits will compel DNR to approve later, environmentally unsound permits. In light of these considerations, and given the plain language of the regulation, we conclude that this case must be remanded to DNR with instructions to identify and report on known and, as to areas of high development potential, substantially possible areas of geophysical hazards within Sale 50.