Unalaska, AK – The Environmental Protection Agency has granted Shell Oil the air permit it needs to start drilling in the Chukchi Sea. The permit covers emissions from the drilling rig Frontier Discoverer and all of its support vessels. Janis Hastings, deputy director of the EPA's office of Air, Waste, and Toxics, says the permit put strict limits on Shell's operations.

"We do a conservative analysis assuming that they are emitting at what would be the maximum amount allowed, and then we do air quality model that looks at what you would expect to see in terms of concentrations at some distance away from the source. In the case of this operation, Shell's required to meet the air quality standard at the hull of the ship, so within a very short distance."

EPA air permit manager Nancy Helm said they took into consideration comments from the public and comments made during public hearings when they developed the permit. "Many of the comments did lead us to make changes to the permit, especially the changes that you see between the August proposal and the January re-proposal. Emissions of several pollutants were quite dramatically reduced."

She said they reduced sulfur dioxide emissions 98 percent more from the original proposal and limited fine particulates by another 75 percent. Both are known to cause health problems.

Shell is required to monitor all of their emissions, and the EPA has the right to inspect them.

"The way that we assure compliance is through a number of reporting and record keeping requirements in the permit," Hastings explained. "So they have to be checking on operations, reporting what they see. All monitoring reports are EPA certified by an official who says they are accurate. And of course if people are not accurate in their reporting it's a very serious offense."

Members of the public have until May 3, 2010 to challenge the permit as long as they address issues they've already made comments on in the past or elements of the permit that changed from the January proposal. If the permit is challenged, it will go before the Environmental Appeals Board.

This permit is only valid for oil and gas exploration for Shell's leases in area 193 in the Chukchi Sea. Hastings said the EPA will make a decision on air permits for the Beaufort Sea operations later this month.