CHAPTER X 



COASTAL AND OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT 



Activities and oil spills associated with exploration and 

 development of coastal and offshore oil and gas resources may 

 adversely affect marine mammals and the ecosystems of which 

 they are a part. Under the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) 

 Lands Act, the Department of the Interior's Minerals Manage- 

 ment Service is responsible for predicting, detecting, and 

 mitigating the adverse effects of OCS exploration and develop- 

 ment. The National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fish and 

 Wildlife Service are responsible, under the Marine Mammal 

 Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, for reviewing 

 proposed actions and advising the Minerals Management Service 

 of measures that may be needed to assure that those actions 

 will not have adverse effects on marine mammals or species 

 listed as endangered or threatened. The Commission reviews 

 relevant policies and activities of these agencies and recom- 

 mends actions that appear necessary to protect marine mammals 

 and their habitats. The Commission's activities in this regard 

 in 1987 are discussed below. 



Proposed OCS Lease Sale #97 

 Beaufort Sea 



Lease Sale #97, tentatively scheduled for January 1988, 

 involves leasing up to 3,930 blocks (approximately 8.6 million 

 acres) of submerged lands in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas 

 off the North Slope of Alaska for the purpose of oil and gas 

 development. Eight species of marine mammals occur in the 

 area, including endangered bowhead and gray whales. The 

 Minerals Management Service's Draft Environmental Impact 

 Statement (DEIS) on the proposed action, which was distributed 

 in November 1986, concludes that possible effects on endangered 

 and non-endangered marine mammals are likely to be minor. 

 The Draft Statement further concludes that the cumulative 

 effects of offshore oil and gas development activities on 

 endangered whales in the area are likely to be moderate. 



The Commission, in consultation with its Committee of 

 Scientific Advisors, reviewed the Draft Statement and, by letter 

 of 6 January 1987, provided comments to the Minerals Management 

 Service. In its letter, the Commission noted that, although 

 the Draft Statement considered many of the possible impacts of 

 the proposed action, there were a number of uncertainties 

 concerning the likelihood and extent of some potential effects 

 that were not fully understood. For example, the Draft State- 

 ment did not always recognize that the effects of an oil 



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