Unalaska, AK – Unalaska's city council unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday night in support of the 5-year oil and gas leasing program for the North Aleutian Basin Outer Continental Shelf. The program would allow oil companies to buy leases in the area in both 2011 and 2014 to explore and drill for oil and liquid natural gas. The resolution passed by the city says the program must include the mitigation measures put forth by the Aleutians East Borough that aim to protect the local fisheries and habitats. They also require the government to include baseline studies of the area. The resolution says that Lease Sale 214 will not alter or divert traditional fishing practices. Keith Colbern, who has fished in the region for 25 years, strongly disagrees.

"That is completely inaccurate and wrong in that whether there are surface or sub-surface drilling platforms or underwater pumping stations, piping stations and anything else, those will be directly in the heart of our king crab grounds, directly in the heart of the spawning grounds for Pacific cod, and for the biggest resource Unalaska has benefited from in the last decade. The pollock juvenile reproduction area is right in the heart of where these oil reserves would be potentially extracted," Colbern said.

This comment is supported by both National Marine Fisheries Service data and North Pacific Fisheries Management Council data. Colburn said the lease area would not only disturb traditional fishing grounds, it could hurt all of the different fisheries at once.

"Unalaska's never suffered a real catastrophic drop in all of the fisheries at one time. And so my warning would be, don't sign on to something that could potentially impact all of your fisheries at once and sign off for near-term cash when you have a long-term sustainable economy."

But city council member Dennis Robinson disagrees that the lease sale poses any risk to the fishing industry or would hurt the fishing grounds.

"I don't view it as a risk to our fisheries. Oil and gas exploration happens in the North Sea, it happens in the Gulf of Mexico. It happens on the East Coast. It happens on the West Coast. There really isn't any risk. It's a hypothetical risk that's always pushed out there," he said.

Robinson also said that oil and gas equipment would not get in the way of any fishing vessels or gear. "I mean, that Bering Sea is huge. It's huge. And the footprints of the drill rigs they are putting out there are very small in comparison to the amount of area the fishing fleets cover."

Additionally Robinson says he sees potential economic benefits of oil and gas development for the region. He says the community needs any economic outlet it can get, even if it only lasts for a few years during staging, because changing ocean conditions might destroy the fisheries anyhow.

The Minerals Management Service is collecting public comments on its draft proposed plan until September 21. The Aleutians East Borough, the Lake and Peninsula Borough, and Bristol Bay Borough have all passed resolutions in support of the lease sales.