Antelope Creek tar sands oil project challenged by environmental groups
The Sierra Club and the Indigenous Environmental Network have filed a complaint in a Utah federal court alleging that the proposed Antelope Creek tar sands oil project will disrupt wildlife, poison and dry up rivers, and harm human health with hazardous air pollutants – including greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, the complaint states that the Department of the Interior and other defendants violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) by failing to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and failing to allow for public participation in the agency’s decision. The complaint alleges that the project anticipates the construction of 288 closely spaced new oil wells and will employ experimental thermal recovery methods. According to the Sierra Club, greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands production are three times those of conventional oil and gas production.
According to the complaint, approval of the Antelope Creek project was based on an Environmental Assessment (EA) conducted in 2003. The complaint states that NEPA requires the preparation of a more comprehensive EIS, and that an EA can only be relied upon if the proposed action will not significantly impact the environment. The plaintiffs allege that the EA prepared for the Antelope Creek project was not sufficient because, inter alia, it “failed to even attempt to characterize or address greenhouse gas emissions from the specific processes Petroglyph proposes to employ.”
An executive at Petroglyph Energy, the company proposing the Antelope Creek project, has issued a statement questioning the basis for the lawsuit. According to Petroglyph Energy executive vice president Paul Powell, “Petroglyph has not been approved for any permits to expand drilling in the area. No action has been initiated, and none is planned to take place. So, the lawsuit doesn’t make sense.” The Bureau of Land Management has not issued any permits to Petroglyph related to the project. According to Powell, “the proposed project was stopped when the permits were not approved.”
The Bureau of Land Management has jurisdiction over roughly 60% of the land at issue, while the rest of the land is administered under tribal authority. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a named defendant in the complaint along with the Department of the Interior. Both are alleged to have violated NEPA by approving the project and issuing related permits.
Tar sands development has been largely concentrated in Canada to date, and is becoming one of the largest single emitters of greenhouse gases. Sierra Club estimates that tar sand production could increase greenhouse gases in the United States from 27 to 126 million tons by 2015.
