August 29, 2022
Stephanie Rice, Willow Master Development Plan Project Manager
Bureau of Land Management
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20240
Dear Stephanie Rice,
I am writing to express Patagonia’s strong opposition to the Willow Master Development Project in America’s Western Arctic.
The Willow Project is the largest oil extraction project currently proposed on U.S. federal lands and would significantly increase oil and gas development in the Western Arctic at the expense of the health of the planet, the Western Arctic ecosystem, and the Indigenous communities who have resided in this area for thousands of years and who rely on this area for traditional food sources.
This unprecedented industrial development in a pristine and ecologically valuable part of our planet would lock in long-term destruction to the entire Western Arctic and would require huge investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure. The Bureau of Land Management’s environmental review process for this project has not properly addressed the serious impacts to public health, wildlife, land or water – all important pieces to us enduring and mitigating the climate crisis we currently face.
Preventing oil and gas extraction in the Western Arctic is essential to President Biden’s climate and conservation goals of reducing U.S. emissions, increasing land protections to reverse biodiversity loss, and growing natural carbon sinks by 2030.
Current estimates used in the DSEIS dramatically understate Willow’s potential climate impacts. The resource estimates used in federal environmental analyses do not capture the full range provided by ConocoPhillips. According to the analysis done by the BLM, an estimated 629 million barrels of oil would be produced across the life of this project between 2024 and 2050. In November 2019, ConocoPhillips released a resource estimate as high as 800 million barrels of oil equivalent for the Greater Willow Area.
Our window to act on climate is rapidly closing. Every new fossil fuel project makes it much harder for us to do what we need to avert truly catastrophic climate change. Burning the oil produced from the Willow project would release hundreds of millions more metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This project is of such a massive scale, and it would open more potential for development in the Western Arctic, that it represents a true departure from the Biden administration’s critical climate goals. In short, it is a terrible idea that would have grave impacts for our planet and future generations.
At a June 2021 market update (p. 10), ConocoPhillips SVP for Global Operations, Nick Olds, told investors that Willow Oil Project could be the next great Alaska hub. Olds also announced that ConocoPhillips has “identified up to 3 billion [barrels of oil equivalent] of nearby prospects and leads with similar characteristics that could leverage the Willow infrastructure. He also added that “this offers significant long-term upside to this project.”
We urge the BLM to choose the No Action Alternative, protect one of our last wild places, and leave a habitable planet to future generations. We need to transition to clean energy and end our dangerous, dirty, and costly dependence on fossil fuels, not double down on decades of oil development.
Sincerely,
Hans Cole, VP Environmental Activism
Patagonia