What could go wrong?
A massive natural gas leak from an offshore pipeline near Anchorage could continue for another month because Hilcorp Alaska says sea ice in the Cook Inlet is preventing a repair. So why would we believe that the same company can safely drill for oil in the Arctic, where the ice and ocean conditions are far more treacherous?
If this company can’t prevent or stop a gas leak in the Cook Inlet, it has no business in the Beaufort Sea. That dark, remote, forbidding Arctic Ocean region is where Hilcorp seeks to build the Liberty Project, a controversial offshore drilling structure involving a nine-acre artificial island and 5.6-mile underwater oil pipeline.
Every day about 300,000 cubic feet of natural gas from Hilcorp’s broken pipe bubbles into the water column, where it threatens endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales and their prey. The gas (mostly methane) saturates the water column and can cause a dead zone harmful to fish and other wildlife. The leak is in the critical habitat of the Cook Inlet beluga whales whose numbers have dwindled to only 340 individuals. When released into the atmosphere, methane is a potent greenhouse gas worsening climate change. Yet company officials claim they’re powerless to do anything but wait.
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