Opinion ID: 3053972
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Impacts of Potential Crude Oil Spills

Text: [18] Despite any other insufficiencies, MMS’s environmental analysis does adequately examine the impacts of a potential crude oil spill. The EA states, “[f]or purposes of this EA analysis, no crude oil spills are assumed from exploration activities. This assumption is based on the low rate of exploratory drilling blowouts per well drilled and the history of exploration spills on the Arctic OCS . . . .” Petitioners contend that this assumption is erroneous, and the agency must consider the likelihood of a spill in relationship to the harm such an event would cause. This argument is unavailing. The agency’s assessment makes the proper inquiry into the risk of an oil spill, and no further analysis is required in relationship to this exploration plan. In the process of NEPA review, an agency should consider the “degree to which the possible effects on the human environment are highly uncertain or involve unique or unknown risks.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(5). NEPA does not require consideration of risks that are “merely speculative” or “infinitesimal.” No GWEN Alliance v. Aldridge, 855 F.2d 1380, 1386 (9th Cir. 1988); Ground Zero Ctr. for Non-Violent Action v. U.S. Dep’t of the Navy, 383 F.3d 1082, 1090 (9th Cir. 2004). An agency should assess the likelihood of a particular risk along with the consequences of such an accident. See City of New York v. U.S. Dep’t of Transp., 715 F.2d 732, 746 (9th Cir. 1983) (“It is only the risk of accident that might render the proposed action environmentally significant. That circumstance obliges the agency to undertake risk assessment: an estimate of both the consequences that might occur and the probability of their occurrence.”). Despite its initial assumption that an oil spill will not occur, the EA includes discussion of the effects of a potential spill on the Inupiat subsistence harvest and a variety of animal species. The EA also incorporates the multi-sale EIS’s extensive discussion of a potential spill. The multi-sale EIS recognizes 15584 ALASKA WILDERNESS v. KEMPTHORNE that “[a] very large oil spill is an issue of concern to everyone. . . . A very large oil spill is a low-probability event with the potential for very high effects.” The EIS analyzes data from spills around the world, since very large spills in U.S. waters have been extremely rare. The document further considers the potential effects of “small” and “large” oil spills in the Beaufort Sea region. Appended to the multi-sale EIS is a lengthy document entitled “The Information, Models and Assumptions We Use to Analyze the Effects of Oil Spills in this EIS.” This report includes information on the history and behavior of spilled oil. In evaluating the risks of an oil spill, the agency has, over time, conducted extensive studies on the likelihood of oil spills in the Beaufort Sea. These include the 2002 and 2006 Bercha Reports on the “Alternative Oil Spill Occurrence Estimators and their Variability for the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.” The analysis of oil spill risks was updated in the EAs for both Lease Sale 195 and Lease Sale 202. There is no indication that the agency erred in relying on these documents in its review of this specific project. Petitioners argue that extensive discussion of spills in MMS’s prior analyses and the requirement that an oil response plan be prepared is evidence that an oil spill is a reasonably foreseeable event. Under their logic, the EA should therefore have included analysis on the possibility of such a spill. Petitioners support this contention by citing to cases where an agency was required to consider even remote risks that could cause great harm. See, e.g., San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. Nuclear Regulatory Comm’n, 449 F.3d 1016, 1030-31 (9th Cir. 2006) (holding that agency was unreasonable in categorically dismissing the possibility of a terrorist attack as “too remote and highly speculative” to warrant NEPA consideration). Petitioners also point out that, even if an oil spill is unlikely, the consequences could be great. Petitioners contend that the EA’s blanket “assumption” failed to adequately consider the relationship between the risk and the consequences of an oil spill. ALASKA WILDERNESS v. KEMPTHORNE 15585 Petitioners’ position on this issue is flawed. The EA properly tiers to the lengthy discussion of the risk and impacts of oil spills in the multi-sale EIS. This case may be distinguished from San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace because here, the agency does not claim it has no obligation to consider this risk, but only that it has sufficiently done so in previous studies. There is no evidence that anything about this particular project requires separate analysis on oil spills. No special risk creates the need for additional evaluation of factors that were not already considered in MMS’s prior studies. Although the language in the EA may not have been ideal, MMS’s “assumption” that there would not be an oil spill was supplemented with comprehensive studies on the likelihood and impact of such an event. Accordingly, the agency did not act arbitrarily and capriciously in its assessment of the potential effects of an oil spill from this project.