Alaska News

Judge expands Greenpeace restriction zone for Shell's Arctic project

The Associated Press (via Fuel Fix) reports that Alaska U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason has extended the effective area for restrictions imposed on future Greenpeace interference with Shell's Alaska offshore drilling program.

In March, Gleason granted a preliminary injunction that orders Greenpeace activists and vessels to stay at least one kilometer away from Shell vessels, in federal territorial waters up to 12 miles offshore.

Judge Gleason's Tuesday decision extends the restriction area to cover up to 200 miles.

Shell is moving forward with plans to drill exploratory wells this summer in the Beaufort Sea 18 miles off Alaska's northeast coast and in the Chukchi Sea 70 miles off the state's northwest coast.

Shell filed for the injunction against Greenpeace in U.S. court after a group of activists, including actress Lucy Lawless of "Xena: Warrior Princess" fame, briefly occupied one of its Alaska-bound drill rigs in New Zealand last February.

At the end of April, Greenpeace Finland activists boarded and chained themselves to a Shell-contracted Finnish icebreaker docked in Helsinki before it departed to support the Alaska operation.

Read more, here.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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