Text 12309, 166 rader
Skriven 2005-04-29 15:54:30 av Ed Connell (1:379/1.6)
     Kommentar till en text av Alan Hess
Ärende: Re: it's not just ANWR
==============================
Hey, Alan.

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 AH> Why are we talking about just ANWR?
 AH> By Nick Jans
 AH> My friend Seth Kantner and I pause on the crest of a wind-swept pass on
 AH> the northern flank of Alaska's Brooks Range. We're far from the nearest
 AH> Eskimo village, amid some of the wildest and most spectacular country
 AH> on the planet - a seemingly endless procession of blue-white mountains
 AH> and tundra valleys. Though we're past the Arctic Circle, the land is
 AH> alive: Bands of caribou forage in the April snow; a few miles back, we
 AH> glimpsed a big grizzly, fresh out of his den; wolf trails wind along
 AH> the creek bottom.

 AH> But before us lies an invisible line: the southern boundary of NPR-A
 AH> (National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska) - 23 million acres of pristine
 AH> public lands that pro-development forces plan to transform into an
 AH> industrial park of staggering proportions, stretching off to a hazy,
 AH> smog-laden horizon.

 AH> No, this isn't the fabled Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the
 AH> focus of a decades-long tug of war between big oil and the
 AH> environmental coalition. That chunk of equally pristine, hotly
 AH> contested real estate lies more than 150 miles to the east. But because
 AH> of the sound-byte mentality of our times, the Arctic Refuge has come to
 AH> be, in the public mind, the chunk of wild Alaska where the
 AH> develop-or-preserve passion play hangs in the balance. Just last week,
 AH> the House passed and sent to the Senate an energy bill that includes a
 AH> provision to open up ANWR to exploration.

 AH> The truth, however, is that 95% of Alaska's Arctic coastal plain is, by
 AH> law, open to gas and oil leasing. This 600-mile-long strip of land at
 AH> the very top of the state is an area vital to hundreds of thousands of
 AH> caribou, millions of migrating birds and a host of rare species of
 AH> flora and fauna. The lease areas extend well offshore along virtually
 AH> the entire Arctic coast, including the refuge, into the Chukchi and
 AH> Beaufort seas. These areas are critical habitat for polar bears, seals
 AH> and the endangered bowhead whale. Most of what hasn't already been
 AH> offered up for sale to the highest corporate bidder is slated for
 AH> auction within the next few years.
 AH>        ARCTIC COAST, BY THE NUMBERS
 AH> 100  Sites ruled contaminated by toxic waste in the North Slope oil
 AH> fields. 570  Miles of permanent gravel roads built.
 AH> 1,000     In square miles, the total area encompassed by the existing
 AH> 27 oil fields. 1,800     Miles of connecting pipeline.
 AH> 2,958     Toxic spills (crude oil, diesel fuel, acids and waste oil,
 AH> etc.) recorded in North Slope oil fields between 1996 and 2002,
 AH> totaling more than 1.7 million gallons. 4,800     Pumping or
 AH> exploratory oil and gas wells. 32,000    Miles of tundra-scarring
 AH> "seismic trails" made from 1990 to 2001 in the process of oil and gas
 AH> exploration on the Arctic slope. 70,413    Tons of nitrogen oxides,
 AH> which contribute to smog and acid rain, annually emitted by the North
 AH> Slope oil fields. Sources: Alaska Department of Environmental
 AH> Conservation; National Research Council; National Resources Defense
 AH> Council

 AH> If that line about the Arctic coast becoming an "industrial park" seems
 AH> an exercise in greenie-weenie hyperbole, you haven't been to Prudhoe
 AH> Bay, where the oil rush began decades ago. Already, the 27 North Slope
 AH> oilfields cover 1,000 square miles. They include more than 4,800 oil
 AH> wells, two refineries and 28 production plants connected by 570 miles
 AH> of permanent gravel roads and 1,800 miles of pipeline. And they are
 AH> served by an array of airports and landing strips, the largest of which
 AH> can handle commercial jetliners. There are power-generating stations,
 AH> seawater-treatment plants, living quarters and maintenance and repair
 AH> facilities. These huge, big-box steel buildings rise from the tundra
 AH> like an endless mirage, illuminated by burning natural gas flares.

 AH> A move westward

 AH> That's just what's here today, and it will be dwarfed if the current
 AH> pace continues. Contrary to the commonly held belief that Alaskan
 AH> Arctic oil is playing out, development is radiating outward from the
 AH> Prudhoe epicenter at an unprecedented rate, even compared with the
 AH> heyday of the first big oil boom. And the direction of much of this
 AH> development is not east toward the Arctic Refuge, but west toward
 AH> NPR-A, where oil is plentiful and public awareness is minimal.

 AH> In fact, oil giants ConocoPhillips and British Petroleum have ceased
 AH> contributing lobbying funds for drilling in ANWR. They're simply too
 AH> busy elsewhere on the Slope. It's as if a kid's mother told him he
 AH> couldn't touch a certain sliver of pie, but then informed him, offhand,
 AH> that he could have the remaining nine-tenths.

 AH> As a barometer of the current radical rush to drill, consider that even
 AH> sensitive areas set aside by former Interior secretary James Watt, the
 AH> bane of environmentalists for his dig-it-up, cut-it-down agenda during
 AH> the Reagan years, are back on the block. These include the globally
 AH> recognized, highly sensitive Teshekpuk Lake, the world's most important
 AH> molting ground for the Pacific black brant and countless other geese,
 AH> and the Utukok Uplands, calving ground to the Western Arctic caribou
 AH> herd - by far the largest in Alaska.

 AH> Last year, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), at the direction of the
 AH> Bush administration, removed all protections from Teshekpuk. Vehement
 AH> opposition by bipartisan groups - including local Eskimos (who depend
 AH> on Teshekpuk as an important subsistence area), the Alaska Department
 AH> of Fish and Game, an array of conservation groups and pro-hunting
 AH> wildlife organizations such as Ducks Unlimited - was disregarded, as
 AH> were warnings of negative impact by the National Academy of Sciences.
 AH> The BLM hasn't given an inch, and the march west toward Utukok's
 AH> caribou calving grounds continues.

 AH> To watch this huge, wild land fade away breaks my heart. I speak not as
 AH> an environmental tourist, but as a 20-year resident of Arctic Alaska
 AH> who lived among the Inupiat and shared their hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
 AH> Of course, I can't expect most of you to feel the same way; you haven't
 AH> traveled its expanse for half of your life. But you should care
 AH> nonetheless. This is public land that belongs to all of us, and it's
 AH> being carved up and sold piecemeal as we speak, with no going back. Not
 AH> even Eskimo hunters, whose ancestors traveled it for thousands of
 AH> years, will be allowed inside the perimeter of these high-security
 AH> corporate fields, patrolled by armed guards in pickups. Neither will
 AH> you. And to claim, as pro-development forces do, that the environmental
 AH> impact is minimal and that the caribou, whales and geese can handle it,
 AH> falls into the "Big Lie" category.

 AH> A brutal imprint

 AH> While the oil companies have indeed made efforts to improve their
 AH> practices, the toll on this fragile, timeless land is brutal. Most of
 AH> the scars of drilling pads and roads will last for centuries, even
 AH> millennia. The pollution is severe. Talk of high-tech, low-impact
 AH> development practices is a sham. The BLM, describing the so-called
 AH> state-of-the-art, "roadless" Alpine oil field, states, " 'roadless'
 AH> does not mean without roads." In fact, the planned and approved Alpine
 AH> field expansion currently includes 31 miles of permanent roads -
 AH> including the main access route into NPR-A.

 AH> Our last great Arctic wilderness exchanged for, at best, a few more
 AH> years of our gasaholic ways and a fistful of dollars is a bleak
 AH> prospect. Yet perhaps, against all odds, the American people will rise
 AH> up and assert their claim to what is rightfully theirs - for a start,
 AH> by renewing demands that the Arctic Refuge, a refuge in the fullest
 AH> sense of the word, containing the last 5% of tenuously protected
 AH> coastline on the northern fringe of the continent, will remain
 AH> preserved as a legacy, to offer at least a glimpse to our children of
 AH> what once was.

 AH> It's an embarrassingly modest proposal, and one that lies within our
 AH> grasp. But only if we raise our voices now.

 AH> Alaskan writer Nick Jans is a member of USA TODAY's board of
 AH> contributors. He also is author of the forthcoming book The Grizzly
 AH> Maze, to be published in July.

 AH> Find this article at:
 AH> http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-04-26-arctic-edit_
 AH> x.htm

That's great.  Just think, with a little heat and pressure, the caribou can 
be turned into fossil fuel.

By the way, the author gives himself away in, among other places, where he 
says "our gasaholic ways".

Just another anti-progress envirofreak.


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 * Origin: Procrastinate NOW, don't put it off for tomorro (1:379/1.6)