The purpose of this proposed Federal action is to offer for lease in October 1985 a maximum of 3,566 blocks on the Outer Continental Shelf for oil and gas exploration and development. The Department of the Interior is required under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, as amended, to manage the exploration, development, and production of oil and gas resources on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). While overseeing this development, the Secretary of the Interior must balance orderly resource development with protection of the human, marine, and coastal environments, ensure that the public receives a fair market value for these resources, and preserve and maintain free enterprise competition. In compliance with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, as amended, the Secretary of the Interior submits a proposed 5-year leasing program to the Congress, the Attorney General, and the governors of affected States indicating his intent to conduct lease sales. The Secretary further reviews, periodically revises as necessary, and maintains the oil and gas leasing program. Goals of the leasing program include the orderly development of OCS oil and gas resources in an environmentally acceptable manner and the maintenance of the adequate contribution of OCS production to the national supply to reduce dependence on foreign oil. Section I.B. deals with the leasing process for Sale No. 111. Section I.C. describes the scoping process. Full development of OCS resources is an integral part of the National Energy Policy Plan. The United States has three overriding energy objectives outlined in that plan: As an immediate objective that will become even more oil and vulnerability to supply interruptions; In the medium-term, to keep U.S. imports sufficiently low to weather the period when world oil production approaches In the long-term, to have renewable and essentially inexhaustible The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) require an environmental analysis and preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) prior to a significant Federal action in order to facilitate the decisionmaking process. This EIS was prepared in response to NEPA and CEQ requirements and Department of the Interior directives to consider offering for lease 3,566 blocks for oil and gas development in the mid-Atlantic region. The purpose of this document is to evaluate potential impacts from proposed Sale No. 111 and to assess the cumulative impacts of developing all of the estimated oil and gas resources in the Mid-Atlantic region. Section I.A. describes the proposed Sale No. 111 in more detail. A. Description of the Proposal Proposed Sale No. 111 tentatively scheduled for October 1985, would be the sixth oil and gas lease sale in the mid-Atlantic (counting two sales which included blocks formerly considered part of the South Atlantic Planning Area), and the second in this area conducted under the Department of the Interior's streamlined procedures for the Outer Continental Shelf leasing process. Two important aspects of the streamlined program are its emphasis on leasing in areas of high potential for oil and gas and studying the possibility of leasing all blocks with hydrocarbon potential within a planning area. Both are designed to accelerate the inventory of our domestic oil and gas resources and their earlier development and production, if discoveries are made. The October 20, 1983 Call for Information for proposed Sale No. 111 elicited industry interest over a broad area of approximately 81.5 million acres offshore the States of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Commonwealth of Virginia, and North Carolina. Based on Federal and State comments, industry interest, and other responses, as well as consideration of MMS estimates of hydrocarbon potential for the planning area, a total of 3,566 blocks covering approximately 20.3 million acres were selected for the proposed Sale No. 111. These blocks are the subject of the intense environmental analysis presented in this EIS. The distance of these blocks from shore ranges from 25 miles off North Carolina out to 140 miles, in water depths from 40 to 3,200 m. At the second, Sale No. 49, As a result of Sale No. 59, Blocks offered but not bid The first OCS oil and gas lease sale in the mid-Atlantic, Sale No. 40, was held August 17, 1976, and 93 blocks were leased. held February 28, 1979, 39 blocks were leased. held December 8, 1981, 51 blocks were leased. on in Sale No. 59 were reoffered at RS-2 held on August 5, 1982; 18 of these blocks were leased. The Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic Planning Areas were redefined in 1982. Accordingly, 24 leases issued as a result of Sale No. 56, one lease issued as a result of RS-2, and 9 leases issued as a result of Sale No. 78 are now within the confines of the Mid-Atlantic Planning Area. Sale No. 76, the first areawide lease sale was held on April 26, 1983 and resulted in the leasing of 37 blocks. Exploratory drilling in the mid-Atlantic started in March 1978. Of the 31 wells drilled in the region, 26 were dry holes and 5 were discovery wells. These 5 contained 12 natural gas zones and 1 small oil zone, but no hydrocarbons in commercial quantities. There are currently 140 active leases in the mid-Atlantic. All expired or relinquished leases within the area identified for proposed Sale No. 111 could be offered again in the proposed sale. The current lease status for the Mid-Atlantic Region is depicted on Visual No. 1. The preparatory stages leading to the proposed Sale No. 111 take about 18 months to accomplish. Some of the steps in the leasing process are outlined below. Call for Information: The Department of the Interior issued a Call for Information in the Federal Register on October 20, 1983. Six companies responded to the Call on Sale No. 111. Five submitted nominations; four assigned priorities. The entire Area of Geologic Potential (20.3 million acres) received nominations. An additional 19 million acres within the Call area but outside the Area of Geologic Potential also received nominations. Industry interest - extended from the Federal/State boundary to approximately the 3,000m isobath. Three companies requested 10-year lease terms for all blocks beyond the 400m isobath. One company requested that leasing units be comprised of 9 to 10 blocks while another favored the current leasing unit size. Responses to the Call for Information were received from eight States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). NOAA's comments applied only to EIS analysis. All other respondents recommended that various areas be deleted for a variety of reasons. Area Identification: All nominations, comments of concern, and environmental issues concerning the area of interest were evaluated to arrive at the area identification. On March 26, 1984, the Department of the Interior announced that 20.3 million acres were being considered for proposed Sale No. 111. This proposal includes all blocks nominated in response to the Call for Information except for the following deletions recommended by MMS: 58 blocks north of 40°15' N. latitude; 2,450 blocks within 50 miles of the coasts of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia; 557 blocks shoreward of the 200m isobath south of the Virginia-North Carolina border; 63 canyon head blocks deleted for the Mid-Atlantic Sale No. 76; and 437 blocks in the submarine transit lanes Golf, Delta, Echo, Whiskey, Hotel, India, Sierra, November, Charlie, and Alpha. The proposed Sale Area thus identified contains 3,566 blocks and focuses on areas of higher hydrocarbon resource potential and at the same time eliminates those areas where substantial conflicts have been identified during the scoping process (see Figure I.A.1-1). Environmental Impact Statement: The Minerals Management Service (MMS) Atlantic OCS Region Office is responsible for preparing the Draft and Final EISs. The Notice of Intent to prepare an EIS appeared in the May 10, 1984, Federal Register. Comments were requested and the responses were evaluated as part of the scoping process. The issues identified during the scoping process are summarized in Section I.C. of this chapter. After the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) is published in |