Environmentalists challenge approval of Shell's Alaskan drilling

Environmentalists and native Alaskans on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the Interior Department's October approval of Shell Oil's plan to drill exploratory wells next year in the Beaufort Sea, which is off Alaska's northern coast.

The challenge alleges that Interior's Minerals Management Service "failed to consider adequately potential impacts of the decision on the sensitive Arctic ecosystem, subsistence activities, and wildlife."

The lawsuit alleges violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and the Endangered Species Act. It was filed by the Native Village of Point Hope, the Alaska Wilderness League, the Center for Biological Diversity, and several other groups.

Interior, in approving Shell's plan in October to drill exploratory wells on two oil-and-gas leases in the July-October period, said it was requiring several safeguards.

This includes a suspension of operations in late August to accommodate fall subsistence bowhead whaling by the Native Villages of Kaktovik and Nuiqsut.