Seattle Arctic drilling protests

The Kulluk ran aground in January 2013 and had to be rescued, resulting in the US Department of the Interior ordering Shell to halt drilling until safety problems were corrected.^[10] Shell was criticized in an Interior Department report, which cited inadequate supervision of subcontractors by Shell's management, and a lack of preparedness for the Arctic conditions.^[10] New regulations were written by the department, and drilling was restricted to shallower waters, up to 140 ft (43 m) deep, and to summer months only, and stricter rules on blowout preventers were put in place.^[10]

Environmentalists and oil industry experts agree the area is one of the most dangerous areas in the world to drill, because besides rough seas including 50 ft (15 m) waves, storms, and cold weather, the cleanup and rescue is made harder by a lack of any roads to major cities and no

The Fremont Solstice Parade included several groups protesting Shell's Arctic drilling, including giant puppets, polar bears and oil workers

In October 2013, Terminal 5's tenant, Eagle Maritime Services, made plans to relocate. The Port of Seattle decided to update T5, and they asked businesses, including

The purpose of the new lease was to provide an off-season harbor for Shell vessels conducting exploratory drilling in the summer in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast.[6] The US Geological Survey has estimated the offshore reserves in the Arctic at 26 million barrels of oil and 130 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.^[6]

The leases of Eagle Marine Services and Westwood Shipping Lines ended in July 2014, so the following month Eagle moved to the Port of Seattle's Terminal 18 and Westwood moved to

On January 13, 2015, the first public meeting North Slope fleet at Terminal 5.^[1] On February 9, the lease with Shell was signed by Port of Seattle CEO Ted Fick.^[1]

When the deal became known, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and the Seattle City Council announced they would review it.^[12] On March 9, the city of Seattle began looking for ways it could hinder the deal.^[1] Murray asked Port to reconsider the contract with Foss, and said that the Port of Seattle must get permits for new uses in order to host the Arctic drilling fleet, explaining that, "This is an opportunity for the port and all of us to make a bold statement about how oil companies contribute to climate change, oil spills and other environmental disasters – and reject this short-term lease."^[6]

Shell's Polar Pioneer semi-submersible drilling rig arrived in Port Angeles, Washington on April 17, 2015, on its way to Seattle.^[1] The Polar Pioneer, IMO number: 8754140, was built in 1985 by Hitachi Zosen Corporation in Ariake, Kagoshima, Japan.^[13] The rig is 400 ft (122 m) long and 292 ft (89 m) wide, with a draft of 30 ft (9.2 m), and rising to a height of 307 ft (94 m), measuring 38,564-gross tonnage (GT).^[1][13] It is driven by electric motors powered by diesel generators, at an average speed of 6.3 knots (11.7 km/h; 7.2 mph) , and a maximum of 8.2 knots (15.2 km/h; 9.4 mph).^[13][14] The Marshall Islands-registered ship is owned and operated by Transocean, and is ander contract to Royal Dutch Shell.^[13]

On May 11, the Obama administration and the Department of the Interior announced that Shell had won conditional approval to being exploratory drilling in the Chukchi Sea with leases Shell had acquired in 2008.^[10] Seven more state and Federal permits would be required to commence operations.^[4] The decision was a victory for Shell, having worked for several years to overcome regulatory roadblocks, based primarily on concerns of an accident like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.^[10] The dangers of the Arctic seas and weather were seen as increasing the risk of an accident, as well as exacerbating the difficulty of containing a blowout and oil spill, and carrying out cleanup.^[10] An earlier attempt to begin drilling was suspended due to safety issues including a fire on one rig.^[4]

On May 12, the same day Port Commissioners filed an appeal of the city's land use permit decision, Shell's drillship Noble Discoverer arrived in Everett, Washington on its way to Bellingham, Washington.^[1][15] The ship, IMO number: 6608608 is a Liberian-flagged Sonat Discoverer-class drillship built in 1966 by Namura Shipbuilding and owned by Noble Corporation, weighing 16,000-gross tonnage (GT), 514 ft (157 m) long with a 175 ft (53 m) tall drilling derrick capable of drilling in 1,000 ft (300 m) of water to a drilling depth of 20,000 ft (6,100 m).^[16][17] It was met by 10 protesters in kayaks, along with a Greenpeace motorboat carrying reporters.^[15] The kayakers displayed banners reading "ShellNo.org" and "Arctic drilling = climate chaos".^[15] The Everett protest was described by one kayaktivist as "just a warm up" for the upcoming event in Seattle.^[15]

In the pre-dawn hours of May 14, the Polar Pioneer left Port Angeles with a Coast Guard and tugboat escort.^[1] A 500-foot (150 m) safety zone was established around the moving rig, and the Coast Guard issued warnings to protesters ahead of time to stay clear.^[1] At least 20 kayaks, and members of the Duwamish Tribe in a large wooden canoe, greeted the rig in Elliott Bay, unfurling a banner reading "Arctic Drilling = Climate Change."^[1] Many of the kayakers were freshly trained that day, in rented boats.^[1] When the Polar Pioneer arrived in Elliott Bay, it was met by a flotilla of hundreds more protesters in kayaks and other small boats, voicing their opposition to oil drilling in Arctic waters because of the risk of oil spills, undersea oil well blowouts, damage to wildlife from human activity, and the climate change caused by the use of fossil fuels.^[4][10] There were no problems or arrests during the protest and the Polar Pioneer was safely moored at Terminal 5 at 4:30 pm.^[1]

A counter-protester at Seacrest Park, recently laid off from the maritime industry, said "If these (activists) choose to put me and guys like me out of work for an idea, what are they trying to do?"^[1] Foss Maritime said to date, 417 people had been employed by the Shell contract, with Shell paying Transocean $593,000 per day to lease the Polar Pioneer, out of some $6 billion the company was going to spend on Alaska oil exploration.^[1] Over the life of the two-year lease, Foss will pay $13.17 million to the Port of Seattle.^[1]

Democratic Alaska State Representative Bob Herron said on the Alaska State House floor, "It must be nice to eat cheese and sip wine in Olympia while they talk about the Arctic. But it does remind us of the paternalistic past when the state of Alaska was plundered by people from Washington and other areas ... who covet our resources."^[7]

Shell said they were committed to drilling in the Arctic one way or another, but City Council member

As part of the ongoing series of protests, activists from the group Mosquito Fleet* rented a 4,000 sq ft (370 m²) barge from Lakeshore Marine Construction of Kenmore.^[11] They anchored it off Seacrest Park, christening it "The People's Platform", and equipping it with speakers, video equipment, a huge video screen, and solar and wind power supplies.^[11] The project was led by Arctic drilling protest organizer John Sellers, who works for a nonprofit called The Other 98% which addresses "undue corporate influence". The Mosquito Fleet raised $16,400 in donations in 6 days with a YouTube video proposal on Indiegogo to fund the barge rental, at a rate of about $15,000 every two weeks.^[11]

On May 22, 2015, the protests spread to Bellingham when student activist Chiara D'Angelo chained herself to the anchor chain of the Royal Dutch Shell barge Arctic Challenger for 63 hours.^[18]

*