1 / 23

BLM-Alaska Overview

BLM-Alaska Overview. Bud C. Cribley BLM-Alaska State Director Western Interstate Region Board of Directors Meeting May 21, 2014. Alaska-Lower 48 Size Comparison. At 586,400 square miles (365 million acres), Alaska is larger than these eastern states combined. Field Offices in Alaska.

tevin
Download Presentation

BLM-Alaska Overview

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. BLM-Alaska Overview Bud C. Cribley BLM-Alaska State Director Western Interstate Region Board of Directors Meeting May 21, 2014

  2. Alaska-Lower 48 Size Comparison At 586,400 square miles (365 million acres), Alaska is larger than these eastern states combined

  3. Field Offices in Alaska BLM Jurisdictional Boundaries

  4. BLM-Alaska Programs • Monitoring • Permitting • Restoration • National Landscape Conservation System • Management of public land records • Mining

  5. BLM-Alaska Programs • Programs Unique to Alaska: • Land Conveyance & Survey • Subsistence • Alaska Fire Service • National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska • Trans-Alaska Pipeline Oversight

  6. Land Conveyance & Survey Program • BLM’s largest land transfer program – 150 million acres • Conveyed area size of CA to State of Alaska • Area roughly size of State of Washington to Native Corps

  7. Trans-Alaska Pipeline BLM Oversight • Oversees and monitors one of the largest, longest pipelines in world • 48-inch diameter, 800 miles long Trans-Alaska Pipeline/utility corridor

  8. NPR-A • 22.8 million acres • Largest contiguous block of federally managed land in US • Roughly size of Indiana • High profile – oil reserve, rich environmental landscape

  9. NPR-A

  10. Legacy Wells Natural oil seeps near Simpson Core Test #31

  11. NPR-A

  12. NPR-A

  13. NPR-A

  14. NPR-A

  15. National Issues • Hydraulic Fracturing Rule • Venting and Flaring • Mitigation • Fire • Sage Grouse

  16. Hydraulic Fracturing Rule • After dozens of meetings, thousands of comments, new path forward • More than a million comments received • About 90% of wells on federal and Indian land fracked nationwide • Proposed rule: • Updated regs • Establish baseline environmental safeguards • Requires public disclosure of chemicals used • Improves assurances of wellbore integrity • Requires water mgmt plans

  17. Venting and Flaring • Capturing natural gas from oil & gas projects • Reduce greenhouse gas • Capture for productive use, economics (GAO estimated $2 million lost per year in royalties) • New rulemaking needed - regs date back to 1979 • DOI and BLM reaching out now to state and tribal governments, others for input on new regs • New regs would establish appropriate standards to prevent waste and promote conservation of produced oil & gas

  18. Mitigation • BLM’s new approach to mitigation for renewable energy development – landscape perspective • Regional approach: • Identify priority opportunities across landscapes • Achieve highest mitigation benefit • Released draft Regional Mitigation manual section last June – interim policy guiding mitigation planning for land use authorizations

  19. Fire • Fire season severity has increased: • Decreased snow pack • Increased temperatures • Longer droughts • Longer fire seasons, bigger fires (doubled in acreage over last 3 decades) • 2014 Budget (CR) - $36 million to DOI for fire suppression • 2015 Admin budget proposal – special disaster relief cap adjustment for use when firefighting costs exceed budgets

  20. Greater Sage Grouse Planning • March 2010 – FWS “warranted but precluded” finding • BLM’s Planning Strategy – complete land use plans by end of 2014, give FWS time to evaluate before court-ordered final listing decision in 2015 • In effort to prevent listing, BLM evaluating SG conservation across 68 planning areas • Stakes are high – hundreds of thousands of sqare miles of sagebrush habitat throughout West

  21. Greater Sage Grouse Impacts • Impacts to Energy development, Recreation, Livestock grazing, Fire management • Proactive approach with Forest Service to maintain wide range of options, reduce regulatory burdens • Ultimate goal to eliminate need to list • Appreciate the work of many of you here as we implement conservation measures into plans • Strong partnerships with counties, states, including Western Gov’s Task Force

  22. Questions?

More Related