GREENPEACE CONTINUES COURT CASE TO HALT ILLEGAL CONSTRUCTION OF BP'S NORTHSTAR PROJECT

15 February 1999

Fairbanks, Alaska -- Greenpeace will return to Superior Court in Fairbanks tomorrow to halt the illegal construction of British Petroleum's Northstar project, the first offshore oil project in the Arctic Ocean. Greenpeace first went to court on January 19 to get an expedited hearing of its case against the Alaska Department of Natural Resources for giving BP an improper "go-ahead" for ice road construction. Although its motion for an expedited hearing was denied, the group was granted a full hearing on the issue, which will begin tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. in Alaska.

BP started ice road construction as the first step in its two-year construction timetable, before it had the necessary permits. Ice roads are used to haul 700,000 cubic yards of gravel six miles over the frozen Beaufort Sea from a 35-acre onshore mine site near the Kuparuk River. The gravel will be placed in the Beaufort Sea to shore up the manmade Seal Island, a manmade island constructed in the early 1980s for exploratory drilling.

"We are looking forward to our day in court since it is clear that once the judge hears the merits of this case, he is bound to rule in favor of the law and in favor of full environmental review of the Northstar project," said Melanie Duchin, Greenpeace spokesperson in Anchorage. "The facts in this case spell out very clearly how the Alaska Department of Resources overturned the four-year cooperative agency review process and ignored laws designed to protect the public from adverse impacts from this project, simply to meet BP's timetable" said Duchin.

BP's Northstar project would be the first project of its kind to use a subsea pipeline for transporting oil from an offshore artificial island to the Trans Alaska Pipeline. The project has been in the works for over four years, and has been subject to numerous delays due to the unproven and dangerous nature of subsea technology in the Arctic. An eight-volume Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) was released February 5 and revealed substantial flaws, particularly with respect to the inability to clean up oil spills and the cumulative impacts of Northstar to the Arctic marine ecosystem. The FEIS revealed that there is a one in four chance of a large oil spill at some point in the 15-year lifetime of the project. Cleaning up an oil spill in Arctic conditions is next to impossible, especially in broken ice conditions during spring and fall.

"BP has shown time and again that it will do just about anything to get Northstar built and pumping oil, and in this case, it has shown a blatant disregard for the law and public process," said Duchin. "If BP truly cared about Alaska, it would cancel the ill-planned Northstar project and redirect its resources to plan a transition away from an oil-based economy. This would not only protect the environment, it would also provide a more stable economy and jobs for the State and for Alaskans, without the threat of layoffs and budget deficits when oil prices take a nose dive. Halting ice road construction is the only responsible step toward showing a regard for the law, the environment and the people of Alaska."

Greenpeace is campaigning to halt oil exploration in new oil frontiers such as the Alaskan Arctic and the Northeast Atlantic oceans as the first step toward phasing out fossil fuels and phasing in renewable forms of energy such as solar and wind.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

- Melanie Duchin, Greenpeace Alaska via cellphone +1 907 440 5024/ voice mail +1 907 277 8234
- Kalee Kreider, Greenpeace USA Climate Campaign +1 202 319 2414
- Deborah Rephan, Greenpeace Press Office, Washington, DC +1 202-319-2492