Alaska oil plan opponents lose 1st fight over Willow project Opponents of the proposed Willow development in Alaska lost their first

Key Highlights :

1. Environmentalists have lost their legal battle over a major oil project on Alaska's petroleum-rich North Slope.

2. The project, Willow, is expected to produce 180,000 barrels of oil a day.

3. The project is supported by state lawmakers and the Alaska Native village corporation, an Alaska Native regional corporation, and the North Slope Borough.

4. The project is opposed by some Alaska Native leaders in the community closest to the project, Nuiqsut.

     JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Environmentalists lost the first round of their legal battle over a major oil project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope on Monday as a judge rejected their requests to halt immediate construction work related to the Willow project.

     The Sierra Club and other groups had argued in court papers that the state’s environmental review process was flawed and that the project should be halted until it can be fixed. But District Judge Sharon Gleason said the groups hadn’t shown that the project’s effects on the environment would be any worse than those of other projects currently under way on the North Slope.

     “There is no evidence that the Willow project will have a substantially greater adverse environmental impact than the projects currently under way,” Gleason wrote in a ruling released Monday.

     The Willow project, which would be the largest oil development in Alaska in decades, would involve drilling an estimated 20 million barrels of oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The state has said the project would create thousands of jobs and help the economy recover from the recession.

     The groups that filed the lawsuit have vowed to appeal.

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