Willow Master Development Plan EIS

The Bureau of Land Management Alaska State Office in Anchorage is preparing a Master Development Plan Environmental Impact Statement for the Willow oil and gas prospect, located within the Bear Tooth Unit of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The Willow Master Development Plan Environmental Impact Statement proposes the construction, operation, and maintenance of an oil and gas development which may include: one central processing facility, an infrastructure pad, up to five drill pads with up to fifty wells on each pad, access and infield roads, an airstrip, pipelines, a gravel mine, and a temporary island to support module delivery via sealift barges. The Willow Master Development Plan Environmental Impact Statement will analyze the potential environmental impacts and appropriate mitigation measures to reduce adverse effects to surface resources from the proposed Willow development.

The BLM has identified the following preliminary issues for evaluation in the Master Development Plan Environmental Impact, impacts to: subsistence use and access; biological resources, including caribou, polar bears, spectacled and Stellar eiders, yellow billed loons, and fisheries; social and cultural resources; air quality and climate; and aquatic resources.

The BLM will use the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) public participation guidelines to assist the agency in satisfying the public involvement requirements under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (54 U.S.C. 306108), pursuant to 36 CFR 800.2(d)(3). The information about historic and cultural resources within the area potentially affected by the Willow development will assist the BLM in identifying and evaluating impacts to cultural resources in the context of both NEPA and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.

Project proponent ConocoPhillips Alaska, Inc. made significant changes to its proposal in response to multiple stakeholder concerns and public comments on the 2019 draft EIS. This resulted in a supplement to the EIS being made available for review and comment March 20-May 4, 2020. Final EIS was released for public review on August 13, 2020.