Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Assessment Program Beaufort Sea (Sale 71) SyrrtheSs Report US. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Office of Marine Pdlution Assessment - ----- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - -- . -- -- - - - DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR of Lbnd Management - - - - -- - -- -z - - - -- - - - --- I Proceedings of a Synthesis Meeting: BEAUFORT SEA - SALE 71 - SYNTHESIS REPORT Chena Hot Springs, Alaska - April 21-23, 1981 D. W. Norton and W. M. Sackinger, Editors J. G. Strauch, Jr. and E. A. Strauch, Technical Editors Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Assessment Program Juneau, A1 aska December 1981 United States United States Department of Commerce Department of the Interior Malcolm Baldridge, Secretary James E. Watt, Secretary National Oceanic and Bureau of Land Management Atmospheric Administration Robert F. Burford, Director John V. Byrne, Administrator Office of Marine Pollution Assessment R. Lawrence Swanson, Director NORTHERN ALASKA -100 200 300KM FRONTISPIECE The location of the Sale 71 area on the Alaskan Arctic coast. NOTICES This report has been reviewed by the U.S. Depart- ment of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Assessment Program Office, and approved for publica- tion. Approval does not necessarily signify that the contents reflect the views and policies of the Depart- ment of Commerce or those of the Department of the Interior. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra- tion (NOAA) does not approve, recommend, or endorse any proprietary product or proprietary material men- tioned in this publication. No reference shall be made to NOAA or to this publication in any advertising or sales promotion which would indicate or imply that NOAA approves, recommends, or endorses any proprietary product or proprietary material mentioned herein, or which has as its purpose an intent to cause directly or indirectly the advertised product to be used or purchased because of this publication. PREFACE The Alaskan Beaufort Sea is an unforgiving OCS frontier region, where continued exploration, discovery, and extraction of petroleum seem nevertheless to be highly probable events. The Department of the Interior's Proposed Sale 71 is the second major lease sale in a series of Beaufort Sea sales, and it is scheduled to follow that of the December 1979--Joint State/Federal Lease Sale by either 38 or 34 months. Although it might appear that because their acreages adjoin (see Frontispiece), Sale 71 will face the same environmental problems as did the Joint Sale, this is not the case, because both environmental and management condi- tions differ markedly between the two lease sales. Sale 71 is scheduled to offer more acreage and to offer tracts farther offshore, with more dynamic and severe sea ice conditions. It will involve a large region unprotected by offshore natural barrier islands, and would comprise an area of marine ecosystems influenced by freshwater influx from the largest river on the Alaskan North Slope. As the Joint Sale followed a concerted field program by OCSEAP that began in 1975, up to five years' intensive investigations in the central portion of the U.S. Beaufort had been made by the time of the sale. There were also three OCSEAP synthesis meetings and reports devoted to the Joint Sale: Weller et al., 1977, Arctic Project Bulletin #15; Weller et al., 1978, Interim Synthesis Report: Beaufort/Chukchi; and Weller et al., 1979, Arctic Project Bulletin #25. The first two were comprehensive reports on the full range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary under- standing of the environments and environmental hazards in the nearshore Beaufort Sea. The third was an analysis of 13 scientific issues relating to proposed stipulations and regulations governing the Joint Sale. Virtually every one of the recommendations made by the OCSEAP scientific community was adopted in stipulatory or regulatory provisions by the State or the Federal lease sale managers. Part of the reason for the strong influence of the scientists on the Joint Sale was their having had a reasonable period to investigate the environments in and around the rather modest acreage of the Joint Sale. The State had first proposed to lease submerged lands in the Beaufort between 1975 and 1977, to prop up a sagging revenue forecast. In 1975, the first proposed five-year lease plan of the Department of the Interior under the accelerated leasing program known as Project Independence called for a Federal Beaufort sale in October 1977. When the sale date was rescheduled for December 1979, OCSEAP thereby had 26 extra months to con- duct pre-sale environmental assessments. Such fortuitous timing does not apply to Lease Sale 71. Compared to the 1979 Joint Sale, the Sale 71 schedule has required the scientific community to address four times the area in one-fourth the time with one- tenth the funding, Whether the sale is held in February 1983, as per the Uarch 1980 federal proposed schedule plans, or is held in October 1982, under the current (1981) proposed acceleration of leasing, only a single 30-day field program has been conducted for all of the western Sale 71 region, in Harrison Bay. Even this brief field program in 1980 would not have taken place without provision of $1 million of extra FY 80 funding by the BL)I shortly after the announced inclusion of Sale 71 in the five-year schedule in mid-fiscal year. If there had not been three previous synthesis meetings and reports devoted to the Beaufort Sea, or if the principal contributors to those proceedings had not been funded (hence still available) through 1981, the present synthesis would not have been possible, or at least it would have been of dubious quality. The Beaufort Sea Sale 71 Synthesis Report that follows represents our attempt to condense into one document the general synthesis of under- standing, scenarios for development of the area, and a scientific issues analysis document that were three separate exercises for the previous Joint Sale synthesis process. During the preparation of this report, there has been some uncer- tainty about the geographic scope of the material to be included, which we hope has been clarified. Some authors have chosen to restrict their contributions and discussions to Harrison Bay itself, because it makes up the main area and geographic focus of the western part of Sale 71. Never- theless, the Federal sale does extend east as far as the easternmost off- shore tracts of the Joint Sale, off Flaxman Island, which are being reoffered (Fig. P.1). Sale 71 will also be the first offering of tracts directly offshore of the Simpson Lagoon-Jones Islands system which OCSEAP has studied intensively and reported on elsewhere, NOAA/OCSEAP Final Reports, Biological Studies, Volumes 7 and 8, 1981. For reasons of economy of space, we have dealt with as much of the eastern Sale 71 area as possible by referring to already published materials. David Norton, William Sackinger, Synthesis Volume Editors - Figure P.1. Sale 71 Geographic names. GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS* Page Preface.............................................................. vii List of Figures ...................................................... x List of Tables ....................................................... xv Section I . Characterization of Sale 71 Environments................ 1 Chapter 1. Ecological characterization.................. 1 Chapter 2. Circulation in the Sale 71 area ............. 57 Chapter 3. Physical characteristics of the Sale 71 area........................................ 79 Section I1. Interdisciplinary process analyses. impact predictions. and issue discussions ............................... 115 Chapter 4 . Ecological processes. sensitivities. and issues of the Sale 71 region................ 115 Chapter 5. Pollutant behavior and trajectories ......... 137 Chapter 6 . Hazards .................................... 159 Chapter 7. Gravel sources and gravel management options 169 Appendix A Quasi-open water spill movement prediction .............. A-1 Appendix B Ice properties.......................................... B-1 Appendix C Seasonal ice morphology maps ............................ C-1 Appendix D Disposal and Drilling Wastes ............................ D-1 Appendix E Attendees. Synthesis Meeting ............................ E-1 Issue Discussions At-A-Glance I Test Structures................................................. 163 I1 Monitoring Ice conditions. ...................................... 165 I11 Biologically Sensitive Areas ................................... 127 IV Siting of Facilities............................................ 129 V Seasonal Drilling Restrictions .................................. 130 VI Sand and Gravel Borraw .......................................... 172 VII Causeways ....................................................... 172 VIII Disposal of Drilling Wastes ................................. 151. D-3 IX Spill Countermeasures ........................................... 152 X Fresh Water Supply .............................................. 131 XI Aircraft and Noise Disturbance .................................. 131 XI1 Lease Duration .................................................. 165 XI11 Long-term Monitoring ............................................ 132 XIV All-year Transportation Capability .............................. 165 *This is an abbreviated table of contents; a more detailed table is to be found at the beginning of each chapter.