Unalaska, AK – Unalaskans want to know what a federal plan to develop oil and gas resources in Bristol Bay could mean to the Bering Sea fishing industry. Community members said so at a public hearing in Unalaska on Monday, hosted by officials from the Minerals Management Service, a division of the Department of the Interior.

Frank Kelty, the former mayor of Unalaska and currently the city's natural resource analyst, noted that the drilling for oil could bring economic opportunities to the region, but he also urged the MMS officials to keep in mind the importance of the fisheries resources of the region.

The MMS's proposed five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program would put the area known as Lease Sale 92 on the auction block for drilling. Shell Oil, which hopes to get the lease, has proposed piping natural gas from the Bristol Bay site to a liquefaction terminal on the Pacific side of the Alaskan Peninsula, from which liquid natural gas would be transported by tankers to the West Coast.

Monday was the first public hearing on the plan since the MMS unveiled it a month ago, and about 20 Unalaska residents attended. While feedback at the meeting was mixed, most speakers were critical of the idea. In particular, they emphasized the threat that oil exploration could pose to ecologically and economically important marine life.

Some communities in Bristol Bay like the idea of offshore oil and gas drilling, which brings with it the possibility of new jobs and hope for the revival of sagging local economies. But for the Dutch Harbor-based fishing industry, the main impact of the drilling would be its overlap with the Bristol Bay fishing grounds. Just how much the two industries would lock horns is impossible to tell until it's known just how much oil and gas is in Bristol Bay.

Regardless of what's there, it's on a federal lease, which means that local communities won't get tax dollars from whatever drilling happens.

Over the next several weeks, MMS officials are holding public hearings in six other Aleutian and Bristol Bay communities as well as one in Anchorage. The proposed five-year program is open for public comment until November 24.