* You can email your own comment to arcticeis.comments@noaa.gov or sign this petition http://dontbeabuckethead.org/act/until 5pm EST TODAY!*

Mr. James H. Lecky

Director

Officer of Protected Resources

National Marine Fisheries Service

1315 East-West Hwy, Room 13705

Silver Spring, MD 20910-6233

February 28, 2012

Happy Tuesday Mr. Lecky,

The petroleum industry really took off in Oil Creek, Pennsylvania in 1859. Since then our country has maintained a status as one of the largest oil producing nations. Petroleum over the past 153 years allowed many industries, our society now depends on, to thrive. The reserves of petroleum in North America peaked in the 1970s and global reserves recently peaked as well. Our society is now considering using some of the most challenging to obtain as well as low quality oil existing on this planet in order to satisfy our addiction to fast, cheap, and abundant energy.

When a heroin addict needs a fix, he doesn’t care what is destroyed on his path to satisfy his addiction. He may steal from his own mother, deceive his friends, or become violent to enable his addiction. The same is the case with energy.

During the public comment meeting in Anchorage, Alaska all the testimony from the petroleum industry mentioned that as the environmental standards and mitigation measures will hinder the economic viability to drill in the Beaufort and Chuckchi Seas. Alternatively, every scientist as well as subsistence users, all of whom have intimate relations to traditional knowledge or science, supported the no action alternative for the lack of current scientific knowledge of the region as well as insufficient mitigation measures, especially for noise.

Of the 5 alternatives the no action alternative is the only one that makes any rational sense with the state of the missing scientific baseline as well as long-term data. Then taking a look at the economic viability of companies being able to successfully work and meet the unsubstantiated environmental mitigation measures should seal the decision for no action. More science needs to be done. This DEIS should also be reprocessed as a pragmatic DEIS since it fails to include the Cook Inlet’s marine resources, cultural, and economic impacts from the proposed leasing in the Beaufort and Chuckchi seas. The arctic marine ecosystem, subsistence hunting grounds, and commercial fishing are all connected to the proposed leasing area through migratory pathways of marine and coastal animals, therefore this must be considered.

Looking at the reality of climate change altering the arctic as we have come to know it needs to be fully considered as well. Now is not the time to risk the last wild salmon fisheries, the marine garden of the north, the culture of Alaskan native peoples, and our oceans. When an oil spill happens, the oil knows no borders. Plumes of oil are still roaming the deep ocean after the Deep Horizon oil spill in the gulf, most likely due to the heavy use of deepwater dispersants. The use of these dispersant could have even more unknown effects in the cold and often ice covered seas of the arctic.

Our country is already risking the fate of 100,000s of species with our current level of reckless development for short-term profit and comfort. I claim it is not only irresponsible to be continuing existing the developmental raping of planet Earth, but it is insane to issue permits to new destructive development especially in one of the last intact ecosystems on planet Earth. I recommend that to fully consider projects under NEPA in our current state of the planet, life cycle analysis of the project as well as full ecosystem mapping of the proposed project area must be considered. Otherwise, the whole process is a sham based off of politics more than reality.

Thank you for your consideration.

All the best,

Tina Robinson