STATE CAPITOL RO. Box ! lOOOi Juneau, AK 9 9 8 1 i -000 [ 907-465-3500 fax: 9 07-465-3532
Governor Bill Walker STATE OF ALASKA
55 0 West Seventh Avenue, Suite i 700 Anchorage, AK 99501 907-269-7450 lax 907-269-7461 www. Gov. Alaska.Gov Goverrior@Alaska.Gov
October 4, 2017
The Honorable Scott Pruitt Environmental Protection Agency 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20460
Dear Administrator Pruitt:
I am writing this letter to ask for your assistance regarding a recent action taken by the US Environmental Protection Agency's Region 10 (EPA-RIO) that could cause significant problems for Alaska's effort to develop North Slope natural gas resources, and possibly for other projects within our state.
On August 29, 2017, EPA-R10 sent a letter to the U.S. Army Corps o f Engineers (ACOE) potentially designating the entire Yukon River basin (an area o f 200,000 square miles, or almost three times the size o f Oklahoma) as an Aquatic Resource o f National Interest (ARNI). This letter was submitted during die comment period for Alaska Gasline Development Corporation's (AGDC) Alaska Stand Alone Pipeline (ASAP) Project Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS), and formally initiates an elevation process between the EPA and the A C O E on die ASAP Section 404 permit process.
I have grave concerns, with not only the implications of EPA-RlO's potential designation o f this vast area o f our state as an ARNI, but also with EPA-RIO's recent opposition to some fundamental aspects o f this critical energy infrastructure project.
First and foremost, in submitting the August 29thletter, EPA-R10 erroneously pre-judges die A C O E 's determination o f compliance with the Clean Water Act's Section 404 (b)(1) guidelines and alleges " extensive, unmitigated destruction and degradation" o f wetlands and permafrost. These allegations are unfounded, disregard years o f best-management practices on the North Slope, and ignore previous analyses and determinations in the original 2012 EIS for the ASAP project (to which EPA-R10 did not object). A G D C lias worked with the A C O E and developed a project design dial minimizes impacts to high value wetlands and permafrost, and would reclaim most o f the impacted areas back to wetlands.
Although EPA-R10 cites changes to die project following the 2012 Final EIS, they fail to acknowledge that A G D C has proposed routing refinements to avoid impacts to high value wetlands where practicable. Avoidance has been proposed through die use o f ice pads, snow pack, and ice roads. The main ground disturbing activity on the North Slope will be through burying the pipe in a five foot wide ditch, which would be stabilized through immediate and ongoing intensive revegetation and maintenance efforts. The natural drainage patterns will be maintained with a buried pipeline, and A G D C intends to reclaim and revegetate the disturbed wetlands area so that it returns
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to a wetland condition. Similar to tire Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), which is buried on much o f the North Slope, the pipeline would run parallel to sheet water flow, Existing cross drainages and hydrology will be maintained and managed, as has been demonstrated for TAPS. One only has to look at the success o f TAPS, which has many miles o f buried pipe on the North Slope, as an example o f successful stabilization and water management within the ROW.
Second, this unfounded judgement o f wetlands impacts has led EPA-R10 to take the position that significant portions o f the proposed natural gas pipeline must be elevated on vertical supports above the tundra on the North Slope, in their opinion, to minimize impacts to wetlands. However, AG DC has demonstrated that an above-ground pipeline would be much more expensive and not practicable. A below-ground pipeline is preferred for all areas, including the North Slope, for engineering reasons (constructability, reliability), safety reasons (protection, cover, security), and environmental reasons (fewer impacts to caribou; wetlands impacts could be avoided, minimized, and mitigated). The State o f Alaska, who owns die land on the North Slope, along with the North Slope Borough and local subsistence users, support the below-ground pipeline. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management analysis o f subsistence impacts also favors the belowground option.
There is a very sound technical basis for placing the pipeline below ground. A G D C has dedicated a significant amount o f time and resources to address potential issues associated with a buried pipeline being raised by LIRA-RIO. A team of engineers, natural resource specialists, geophysicists (including a geothermal modeler), and former Alyeska pipeline employees with prior North Slope pipeline experience developed construction and operational methodologies and techniques designed to mitigate impacts associated with the AS AP Project's buried pipeline:
Gas will be conditioned to below freezing temperatures and will be compatible with Arctic ground temperatures.
There are significant problems with operating a chilled natural gas pipeline above-ground in an environment where temperature extremes can range from 90 degrees above zero to 50 degrees below zero or colder.
* A G D C 's engineering aims to avoid and minimize impacts to permafrost to the extent practicable. A G D C 's thermal modeling takes into account impacts related to ground disturbance and initial clearing o f vegetation. A G D C 's intended revegetation efforts will be substantial and are well-characterized in its Revegetation Plan, developed by experts at the Alaska Department o f Natural Resources Plant Materials Center.
Finally, EPA-R10 is challenging the project's proposed mitigation plan for disturbed wetlands. A G D C 's proposed mitigation plan, which is based on preliminary' guidance from the A C O E 's Alaska Region, looks at each o f the 60 watersheds traversed by the project: and evaluates each watershed based on how much wetlands disturbance has already occurred within that watershed. If the sum o f new and existing impacts to a watershed is well below a threshold o f what the scientific literature deems significant impact to aquatic resources, then no mitigation would be required. It a watershed has seen significant disturbance and A G D C 's impacts add to this disturbance, then mitigation would be required. Alaska contains 65 percent o f the wetlands o f the United States. As you are likely aware, almost all wetlands in our state are undisturbed, and accordingly, most o f the wetlands traversed by our proposed pipeline are also undisturbed. As large and remote as Alaska is, and as many wetlands as it contains, it would not be practicable, nor environmentally justifiable, for tltis project to mitigate for all wetland impacts along the entire pipeline route.
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After consultation with A C O E, A G D C has taken a watershed-level approach, as discussed in the 2008 Mitigation Rule. A G D C followed preliminary guidance from A C O E in developing the framework for its plan, and has proposed what it believes to be appropriate and practicable mitigation for this long, linear project through many remote and relatively undeveloped watersheds. A G D C performed and validated a detailed analysis o f the National Land Cover Database and reviewed an extensive body o f literature on watershed-level impacts to aquatic resources and functions associated with anthropogenic disturbance. The analyses and review o f the literature indicates that all but three watersheds do not have existing substantive impacts, and one o f these three watersheds has no project wetland impacts. As die majority o f the project's wetlands impacts are not considered substantive to the relatively remote and undeveloped watersheds in which they exist, mitigation is neither appropriate nor practicable in most watersheds. In the two watersheds where the cumulative wetlands impacts to watersheds are substantive and where mitigation is appropriate and practicable, A G D C has proposed compensatory mitigation through the purchase of available mitigation credits to offset debits.
I would like to note that this action by EPA-R10 appears contrary to the intent o f President Trump's August 15, 2017 Presidential Executive Order on Establishing Discipline and Accountability in die Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure, which calls for " coordinated, consistent, predictable, and timely" environmental reviews by federal agencies. The EPA RIO has had adequate opportunity to evaluate the project, and its recent actions appears to be an attempt to add significant risk or delay to this project. This is anything but: " coordinated, consistent, predictable, and timely."
I request that you intervene with EPA Region 10 to review the basis o f their designation o f the entire Yukon River basin as an ARNI and their opposition to construction o f a below-ground pipeline and A G D C 's use o f A C O E guidance to wetlands mitigation.
Sincerely,
Bill Walker Governor
cc; The Honorable Lisa Murkowski, United States Senate The Honorable Dan Sullivan, United State Senate The Honorable Don Young, United States House o f Representatives The Honorable Andy Mack, Commissioner, Alaska Department o f Natural Resources The Honorable Larry Hartig, Commissioner, Alaska Department o f Environmental Conservation Keith Meyer, President, Alaska Gasline Development Corporation John Crowther, Director o f State and Federal Relations, Office o f the Governor
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