NRG NorthAmOil: ConocoPhillips in court over Willow construction

This week, a court has temporarily delayed the start of winter construction at ConocoPhillips’ Willow project in Alaska. US District Judge Sharon Gleason said in a decision on February 6 that she would temporarily prevent ConocoPhillips from opening a gravel mine or building a gravel road at the Willow site. This came after conservation groups appealed against her February 1 decision allowing the work to go ahead.
Gleason’s latest decision said a “brief and limited” injunction to prevent the work was warranted. It will be in place until February 20, or until the Ninth Circuit Court rules on the request, she added. However, Gleason said in her ruling that the court “remains confident” in the original decision to allow the work to proceed, though the Ninth Circuit Court may disagree.
ConocoPhillips plans to break ground at the Willow mine site starting later this week, subsequently hauling the gravel it mines and starting gravel road construction on March 12. Gleason raised concerns over the impact of this work on the landscape, but added that she would allow ConocoPhillips to proceed with ice road construction as the conservation groups opposing the project had not shown that such ice roads would irreparably hurt the environment.
Willow, located in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), is one of a number of energy projects that environmental groups are trying to stop in the courts. Also this past weekend, a federal court denied a request to halt construction on Enbridge's Line 3 oil pipeline replacement across northern Minnesota, upholding a water quality permit granted to the project by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The judge said the tribal and environmental groups that had filed for an injunction in December had failed to prove that any permanent harm would result from allowing the work to proceed. Indeed, the judge ruled that the harm of stopping construction, which began on December 1, outweighed the environmental risks of the Line 3 replacement.
Meanwhile, it emerged last week that a dispute over the PennEast pipeline, which is being blocked by the State of New Jersey, would be heard by the US Supreme Court.