Conoco Phillips is suing the federal government, seeking relief from tightened rules for protecting Arctic Ocean whales from disturbance by offshore seismic work.
The oil giant, in a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, says the National Marine Fisheries Service required additional sonic monitoring over a much broader swath of the remote Chukchi Sea, where Conoco is conducting seismic testing this fall.
The Conoco suit argues the more stringent rules are arbitrary, impractical and even dangerous for workers who must conduct aerial or other monitoring of seismic decibel levels emanating from the survey ship Patriot.
Central to Conoco's suit is that NMFS adjusted down the sound level that must be monitored, from 180 decibels to as low as 120 decibels. This greatly expands the territory the company must monitor, the suit says.
According to the federal permits Conoco received, the company must temporarily shut down seismic activity if bowhead whale/calf pairs are present where seismic sound levels are 120 decibels or more. Bowheads are on the endangered species list.
Seismic work involves using airguns to bounce sound waves off the ocean floor to map rock formations that might hold oil or natural gas.
The government is fighting the Conoco suit, which was filed Aug. 24.
"NMFS fully considered the relevant factors regarding the need for and practicability of the 120-decibel requirements and determined that these additional mitigation measures were necessary to reduce the potential for adverse impacts to cow/calf pairs migrating through the Chukchi Sea," attorneys for the agency wrote in papers filed this week.
The government lawyers suggested Conoco's resistance to the sound monitoring rules "amount to no more than" an effort to save money.
Conoco spokeswoman Dawn Patience said Friday that the seismic work already has begun and that the company is complying with the terms of the permits.
She didn't know how much the sound monitoring is costing the company.
The Chukchi is a very remote body of water off Alaska's northwest shoulder. Conoco's seismic work marks a resumption of industry interest in the region after a long hiatus. Two other companies, including oil-major Shell, also obtained permits for seismic work in the Chukchi.
Federal officials estimate the Chukchi could hold a colossal trove of petroleum -- up to 40 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 210 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. They've proposed a lease sale for next year.
Seismic testing is a prelude for potential exploratory drilling in the Chukchi.
The Native village of Point Hope, on the Chukchi shore, has sided with the government in opposing Conoco's lawsuit. Villagers there have long hunted the bowhead for food, and lawyers for the village argue in court papers that whale survival could be jeopardized if the animals must alter their migration to avoid industry noise.
The Point Hope lawyers say Conoco is trying to save $1.7 million but, in light of recent record-high oil prices, the company fails to show how it would be significantly damaged by abiding by the heightened sound-monitoring rules.
Daily News reporter Wesley Loy can be reached at wloy@adn.com or 257-4590.
