Cautionary Notes From Alaska

March 10, 2003
www.nytimes.com

The National Academy of Sciences has now released its
long-awaited study of the environmental consequences of
three decades of oil drilling along Alaska's North Slope.
The report concludes that these consequences have been
largely unfavorable and are likely to get worse despite
efforts by the oil companies to minimize damage. The report
did not address the likely effect of drilling in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, an adjacent property coveted by
the oil companies and the Bush administration. But it
presents a disturbing picture of what could happen, even
with improvements in drilling technology, and is thus
another good argument for leaving the refuge alone.

Oil was discovered on the North Slope in 1968. The area has
since supplied about 20 percent of America's domestic
production, but at considerable environmental cost. The
reproductive rates of certain bird species, including snow
geese, eiders and some shorebirds, have declined. Female
caribou are producing fewer calves, while offshore seismic
activity has driven whales out to sea and beyond the
hunting range of native communities. The report also says
that thousands of acres of tundra vegetation have been
destroyed and that "wilderness values" - a broader term
encompassing solitude and scenic qualities - have been
compromised in a much larger area. The problem has not been
the individual wells but associated infrastructure, like
roads, pipelines and housing.

None of this is likely to deter Congressional proponents of
drilling in the refuge's coastal plain, an undisturbed
1.5-million-acre wilderness that cannot be drilled without
specific authorization by Congress. Nor is it likely to
deter Gale Norton, the secretary of the interior, who has
lately been quite busy searching for oil elsewhere in
Alaska. In recent months, her department has moved to open
8.8 million acres in the northwest corner of the National
Petroleum Reserve, while seeking to ease important
environmental protections imposed by the Clinton
administration when it made 4.6 million acres in the
reserve's northeast corner available for leasing in 1998.
Her department also plans to lease nearly 10 million acres
in the Beaufort Sea off the state's northern edge.

As this page has pointed out, there are better ways to
decrease America's dependence on foreign oil than punching
holes in the Arctic. Merely requiring S.U.V.'s to meet the
same fuel economy standards as ordinary cars would save one
million barrels a day, more than the refuge could produce
at peak volume. Once again the burden of fashioning a
rational energy strategy that emphasizes conservation falls
on the half-dozen Republican senators who helped derail
President Bush's efforts to open up the refuge last year.
Their votes will be needed to ensure that the
administration's assault on Alaska does not get any worse
than it already is.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/10/opinion/10MON1.html?ex=1048321388&ei=1&en=a73e0f456e4b7a17