Author(s)

Marilyn Heiman

Author(s) Description

Director, U.S. Arctic Program, Pew Environment Group

Oil industry plans to drill exploratory wells in America's Arctic Ocean got off to an inauspicious start recently, when a Shell Oil Co. drilling ship slipped anchor and drifted perilously close to the beach at Alaska's Dutch Harbor. A tugboat pulled the massive rig back into place, and the U.S. Coast Guard is investigating.

The mishap -- along with a series of other troubling setbacks -- raises a question that some of us have been asking for the past year: Are we really ready to drill in such a remote and risky setting?

Arctic conditions are among the most extreme on Earth, including hurricane-force winds, high seas, impenetrable fog, and shifting sea ice. Preventing an accident in such conditions is going to be far more challenging than anchoring a rig in the 35-mph winds and 4-foot seas reported in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, during the recent incident. If there is a spill in the Arctic, just getting people and equipment to such a remote location will be daunting: Dutch Harbor, 1,000 miles south of the proposed drilling site, is the nearest major port. And even then, there is no proven method of cleaning up oil in broken ice.

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Read the full post, Recent Mishaps Raise Doubts About Arctic Drilling Safety, on the Huffington Post website.