Harry..thanks for that pro-oil "nothing will go wrong if we drill there" spiel.. now.. heres the alternate point of view for you.. written in a fine piece by Time Magazine... some snippets from a long but excellent article.
time.com
"The Last Call Of The Wild"
ANWR is an important, passionate, at-the-barricades issue to the Bushes, and this should not surprise, since both
the present and former president, as well as Dick Cheney, have been, in previous careers, oilmen. Big Oil has
lusted afterthis parcel for more than three decades, ever since the biggest oil strike in U.S. history — an eventual 10 million barrels — was made in 1968 at Prudhoe Bay, just west of ANWR.
...Louie G. John was a leader among the village's 120 citizens. The townsfolk were Gwich'in members of the
Athapaskan Indian group, which numbered — and still numbers — 7,000 and is scattered throughout several
villages in Alaska and northwestern Canada. John spoke softly but passionately of his people's involvement with
caribou and thus with ANWR: "For thousands of years Gwich'in have hunted caribou, even back in nomadic times when we would follow the herd. It's part of our culture. For us, opposing development is like fighting for our lives. The caribou is our spiritual identity, not just our food. "The calving grounds — our grandfathers told us never to
bother that special place in May and June. They said, 'Even a mosquito can kill a caribou calf when it's just born.' We learned that the place was sacred land. Now they want to develop this place, and this could kill caribou. We would be in a bad situation. If the caribou die, it's like part of our body is missing."
There are 182,000 head of caribou in the Porcupine herd, North America's largest. In a typical year, these migratory animals inhabit the coastal plain of ANWR during their sensitive late-spring calving period. This coastal plain has come to be known as the "1002 Area," phrased "ten-oh-two" in An-war-ese. .....
...In the mid-'80s Interior conducted a study that concluded the caribou herd could decline by as much as 40 percent if the "core calving areas" within the 1002 Area were invaded by future developers. In 1987 the oil-potential report finally came out, and Interior changed its tune — big time. The department now said there were no "core" calving areas and that it had been an "error" to project a 40 percent caribou decline. Interior's new recommendation was: Develop the whole coastal plain, because an oil strike could produce 600 million to 9.2 billion barrels [a figure revised upward, by the year 2000, to 14 billion barrels].
Even though Interior admitted the chances of such a strike were only 19 percent — one-in-five odds — the oil
industry took heart and the Indians grew worried.
Suppose the caribou herd is diminished. Only a very few people are impacted by this. The federal government
estimates a many-hundred-billion-dollar prospect beneath the 1002. And yet we're being asked to take into account the objections of a very few people. Eminent domain cases cause discomfort every day. But the Gwich'ins' isn't a typical eminent domain case. Theirs is an important request. If our society is unable to
allow them their eternal culture, just as we may be incapable of allowing the caribou their traditional birthing
ground, then what does that say about us? Recalling other Indians, recalling the buffalo, maybe there's reason to
worry about that answer.
......there's evidence that deleterious effects to large wildlife have extended south from the Prudhoe Bay oilfields. The Dall sheep population of the western and central Brooks Range is declining, possibly due to activity in Prudhoe. Even with advancements in production techniques and technology, few would contend that drilling would have no impact, or that the impact could never extend beyond the immediate area.
.........They (the environmentalists and Natives -St.) seemed resolutely unwilling to bargain with Big Oil, or those whom they considered Big Oil's representatives in Congress. I asked about the basis for their distrust.
"Oil companies misrepresent everything," said Alexander. "Look at their national-security argument."
That argument, which gained great prominence during the Gulf War, maintains that ANWR development is important to our security because the U.S. shouldn't be too heavily dependent upon foreign oil.The oil lobby contends that ANWR oilfields could ameliorate a dangerous situation. The Interior Department estimates that the U.S. has more than 50 billion barrels of crude outside known oil fields that could be put into production with existing technology. ANWR's is the largest single deposit among this untapped reserve. ANWR is seen by some as our biggest unloaded energy cannon.
"The national security argument doesn't hold water," insisted Blake. "Not when you consider that there's no plan
to conserve the oil we're wasting. The Reagan Administration relaxed all the energy standards and they
haven't been re-tightened."
The Reagan White House rolled back auto fuel-economy regulations and cut funds for solar energy development and mass transit. It was hoped that George Bush senior, the self-professed "environment president," would correct some of this, but when his energy plan was delivered the most glaring omissions were new mileage standards and any incentives for alternative fuels. Throughout the 1980s and into the '90s, the White House successfully opposed moves to raise gasoline taxes and to establish energy-efficiency standards for appliances, standards that would have saved more than a billion barrels of oil by century's end. The White House attitude caused an undeniable erosion in conservation. In heavily industrialized New England, for instance, oil use by
utilities dropped by 17 percent from 1983 to 1985, but then soared 25 percent in '86 and has kept climbing. In 1990, 40 percent of New England's power needs were met by oil, 31 percent more than in 1985. New England's surge — or slide, if you want to look at it that way — was mirrored nationwide. From 1986 though '89 Americans burned between five and nine billion gallons more gasoline than they did in the previous four-year period.
..........."I'm not anti-oil per se, and maybe someday we'll need to drill for ANWR's oil," Alice Rivlin told me a decade ago as she sat by the eastern shore of the Hulahula River. Rivlin, chairman of the Wilderness Society and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.."But we don't need to drill now. We're wasting oil; we don't need more of it to waste. So it would be good to win the ANWR fight from a commonsense perspective — to prove we are not a silly, wasteful society.
Rivlin's right about one thing: There's no need to develop ANWR right now. Proof of this came in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The U.S. House Appropriations Committee overrode the objections of Big Oil and issued a one-year ban on drilling in large areas off the California, New England, mid-Atlantic and Florida coasts. It also banned oil and gas exploration in Alaska's Bristol Bay. The committee certainly wouldn't have acted as precipitously as it did if the modern USA were in any kind of oil crunch. Moreover, there are thousands of already granted oil leases nationwide that are not being developed [a fact that remains true in 2001]. And a last bit of evidence: Since losing a $150-million-per-year state tax break because of the Valdez incident, the Alaskan oil industry has said — rather petulantly, and over and over — that it might not even explore, let alone develop, some sites in the Arctic Ocean that are currently open to it.
....This caribou trait has a significance in the ANWR debate. Development advocates point to the Central Arctic Herd's nonchalent attitude regarding the Alaskan Pipeline, which was completed in 1977, as proof that drilling in the 1002 will not adversely affect the Porcupine Herd. The argument was memorably synopsized in 1988 by Presidential candidate George Bush when he said, "I'd like to see us open up that Arctic Refuge, and that's important. Because it was said once, remember, when they built that pipeline, 'Don't build the pipeline, you get rid of the caribou.' The caribou love it! They rub up against it and have babies. There are more caribou in Alaska than you can shake a stick at!"
The statement is more than a rather bizarre view of the procreative process. It's wholly misleading.
First, the Central Arctic Herd migrates north-south in the direction of the pipeline, and so is relatively unbothered by the parallel pipe. The Porcupine Herd travels east-west, and this pattern would intersect with the proposed pipeline extension linking 1002 oilfields to the Trans-Alaskan tube.
Moreover, the Central Arctic isn't necessarily a good model for the Porcupine Herd. "Many conclusions probably
apply to both herds," Tom McCabe, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's director of terrestrial research in the
1002 Area, told me. "But a major caveat is that the Porcupine Herd is 10 times larger than the Central Arctic.
The chances that one or two animals will react adversely to development in a large herd, and then spook the whole herd, is, of course, much greater than in a small herd."
Big Oil's attempts to paint a pretty picture of development in northern Alaska go further than misrepresenting the caribou situation. Industry, with the apparent collusion of government, has long portrayed the Prudhoe Bay oil
operation as an exemplar of environmentally sound drilling. Again George Bush has been a point man: "I think most people are reasonable enough and fair enough to look back at the record over the years in terms of the pipeline and have found there has been very little damage, if any. Certainly there's been no lasting environmental damage."
In fact, the Prudhoe Bay area has suffered considerable environmental damage, much of it severe and some of it lasting.
In 1987 Rep. George Miller (D-Cal.), chairman of the Water and Power Resources Subcommittee of the House
Interior Committee, asked for an update on environmental impacts at Prudhoe so Congress could use the information when considering ANWR. Miller wasn't opposed to developing the 1002, but he wanted to make certain the necessary environmental safeguards were taken. He asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to compare actual impacts at Prudhoe with those predicted 16 years earlier in an Environmental Impact Statement.
In December, 1987, F&W gave Miller a summary of its report. This synopsis didn't mention any major
discrepancies between the 1971 EIS and actual damage in the field. It said that in a number of cases the predictions had been on target, and in others damage had been corrected by the oil companies.
Miller asked for the full report and was surprised to find that the Interior Department — which oversees Fish and
Wildlife — was uncooperative. In May, 1988, the 86 pages were leaked to Miller by concerned F&W staffers.
Among the findings in the complete report:
A 500-square-mile area of disturbance was originally predicted for oilfield development, but in fact an
800-square-mile area — 37 percent more — had been disturbed.
While it had been predicted that 6,000 acres of vegetation used by wildlife would be lost, 11,000 had been lost.
Although the original EIS hadn't foreseen any use of freshwater from Alaska's streams and lakes, some 200
million gallons were being used for oilfield operations annually. Furthermore, "the frequency and magnitude of impacts resulting from erosion and sedimentation, alteration of natural drainages, losses or impoundments of surface flow, and oil spills were frequently understated."
Unexpected expansion of offshore operations had damaged marine life. "Impacts to fish resources were
some of the most significant environmental problems directly associated with the construction of the
pipeline...
"Direct and secondary habitat losses resulted in the total estimated loss or displacement of 22,500 birds."
Gravel extraction for development was 60 percent greater than expected. Extant facilities that weren't
foreseen in the EIS included sewage and solid-waste disposal sites, oily waste pits, causeways and
seawater treatment plants.
Although the EIS hadn't addressed pesticide pollution, "intensive" pesticide use had occurred at some
oilfields.
The rise in caribou may be related to declines in predatory wolves and bears. The numbers of Dall sheep and other large mammals had also decreased in and near developed areas.
When Miller went public with the full report in mid-1988, the American Petroleum Institute responded with chutzpah:
"So far more than six billion barrels of oil have been produced on the North Slope in an environmentally sound
and safe way. It is a remarkable record."
Remarkable? Not nearly as remarkable as a pink polar bear. In 1989 a polar bear, stained fluorescent pink after having drunk two industrial poisons, was found dead on the North Slope.
Certainly 21st-century technology and a heightened watchdog attitude would make for more responsible
development in the 1002. But just as certainly, history offers every reason for distrust when we're talking about
getting oil out of Alaska.
............"Don't believe those Interior or any other estimates," cautioned Rivlin. "There has been a consistent
overestimation of revenue projection from oil leases throughout the years. The more the oil companies want a place, the higher revenue is projected. That's part of their strategy — that they have to have it. The country has to have it." |
