Construction of a natural gas processing plant on Alaska’s North Slope will result in the loss of hundreds of acres of wildlife habitat, wetlands, and land used for subsistence hunting, according to federal documents.
On Sept. 30, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation proposed a draft air permit that would allow the construction of a gas treatment plant for Alaska LNG, a broader project that includes an 800-mile pipeline from the Arctic to the port of Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula.
Building the gas treatment plant will lead to the permanent loss of 781 acres of caribou habitat, according to an environmental impact statement for Alaska LNG. Construction of the plant and associated facilities would also impact 109 acres of polar bear critical feeding habitat and 798 acres of habitat where the bears build their dens for the winter.
Construction plans also include a 141-acre gravel mine near the Putuligayuk River, along with a 35-acre water supply reservoir. Construction of all these facilities will permanently destroy at least 661 acres of wetlands, according to the final environmental impact statement.
If built, the treatment plant could emit over 7.2 million tons of greenhouse gases per year and over 27,000 tons annually of health-harming “criteria” air pollutants, which form smog and soot. It could emit more greenhouse gas pollution than a coal-fired power plant, with emissions roughly equivalent to 1.5 million cars and trucks driven for a year.
The plant’s emissions will make the skies hazier and lower visibility at nearby public lands, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. Air pollution from the plant would also lead to increased levels of nitrogen deposition from the atmosphere at Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, “which could have a long-term significant impact” on the refuge’s ecology, according to the environmental impact statement.
The statement acknowledges that the gas treatment plant and associated facilities would have little economic benefit to North Slope region. Nearly all plant workers would live in works camps on-site, and only a very small amount of these employee earnings would be spent in the local economy. “Therefore, the majority of the indirect and induced economic impacts … would accrue in areas outside the North Slope,” the document states.
After having impurities removed at the gas processing plant, natural gas from the North Slope would be shipped to the Alaska LNG export terminal, where it would be chilled and liquified to be loaded onto tankers for export at the Alaska LNG export terminal. The company developing the project is split between New York- and Houston-based energy developer Glenfarne Group, with 75-percent ownership, and the State of Alaska, which owns the remaining 25 percent.
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation is accepting comments on the draft permit until Oct. 30. Please see the public notice for more information.
— Research by Paul MacGillis-Falcon
