The Bureau of Land Management could allow drilling work on a sensitive region of Alaska's North Slope after it completed additional environmental research on the area, an agency spokeswoman said.

The agency has finished work on a "supplemental environmental impact statement" that adds new information to its environmental impact assessment of drilling work in an environmentally sensitive area of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska area called Teshekpuk Lake on the North Slope, agency spokeswoman Sharon Wilson said this week.

Officials are looking over the new information and their review should be complete soon, Wilson said. She added that the new document takes into account a recent assessment of public health concerns that would be associated with the drilling work (AP/Anchorage Daily News, July 10).

The area under review covers roughly 400,000 acres to the north and east of Teshekpuk Lake (Greenwire, Nov. 20, 2006). -- RJD

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