Arctic Oil Drilling Debate Escalates

Ben Spiess
Anchorage Daily News

May 7, 2001

ANCHORAGE, Alaska—The wind shivers across this expanse of the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, chasing the snow before it in wafting
white lace south toward the Brooks Range.

The coastal plain's hard beauty is exceptional, but it is what lies underneath that makes this place controversial: oil.

With anywhere from 5.7 billion to 16 billion barrels of oil, the coastal plain may hold the largest undeveloped onshore reserves in North America.

For Alaskans, the refuge debate is not a new one. What's changed is that for the first time since the massive Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, supporters of development see a real chance to open the refuge to oil exploration.

With a pro-development president and an emerging energy crisis, the long-simmering refuge debate has come to a full boil in the past year.

Oil supporters argue that the industry has refined its practices over 30 years of Arctic operations and that the coastal plain can be developed with minimal impact to the tundra and wildlife.

Opponents say that pipelines and production pads would permanently change the tundra, lead to oil spills and threaten caribou and other wildlife. Further, any development would alter the wild character of not only the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain but the entire 19.8 million-acre refuge.

Opening the refuge requires an act of Congress, and development would be limited to the flat coastal swath on the refuge's northern fringe.

The fight is fierce over what this remote Arctic plain should mean to America.

President Bush has made more domestic oil production a key part of his energy policy. And for large amounts of new oil in the United States, the Arctic refuge is one of the few places to look.

No people live on the protected coastal plain, although the village of Kaktovik, population 293, sits about three miles north. A city survey showed that 78 percent of Kaktovik residents support letting oil companies into the refuge.

According to a survey from a pro-development group, 75 percent of Alaskans support refuge exploration. Nationwide, 40 percent of Americans favor exploration and 56 percent oppose it, a Gallup poll reported in March.

Alaskans Eye Revenue

It's no accident that the greatest support lies closest to the refuge. In Kaktovik, refuge oil would mean jobs, taxes and perhaps a cut of the oil flow. For Alaskans, drilling in the refuge would mean more high-paying oil jobs and a fresh charge of oil dollars to the state treasury, as much as $400 million a year, according to state petroleum economist Chuck Logsdon.

But if the benefits are obvious to many Alaskans, they would be intangible for most outside of the state.

Although only one well has been drilled in the refuge, the Department of Energy believes the refuge would produce about 1 million barrels a day at peak production. That's enough to double Alaska production and increase national oil production by 17 percent.

But more Alaska crude would do nothing to solve California's electricity crisis, which is caused primarily by a shortage of power-generation capacity. Oil from the refuge would also probably not lower global oil prices, said Arlon Tussing, an energy economist in Seattle. Nor would it free the nation from dependence on OPEC oil or end the nation's vulnerability to disruptions in the production of foreign crude.

Even tapping refuge oil, the United States would still import more than half its crude oil.

The industry and its supporters argue that they can preserve the refuge while getting the oil. There have been no catastrophic oil spills on the North Slope, and air emissions and water quality are within lawful ranges.

Industry has displaced some species, in particular calving caribou females, from their summer range. But wildlife populations are stable. The caribou herd in the oil fields is at its largest since biologists began tracking the population 23 years ago.

"I believe the oil industry can go into any sensitive area and work in a way that is fully compatible with the wildlife and other natural resources," said Mike Joyce, a biologist who worked on the North Slope for 26 years.

Long Anti-Development Fight

Environmentalists have been pushing protection of the refuge region for 50 years.

In 1960, the area was set aside as a wildlife range. In the intervening years—as companies discovered oil, as Alaska lands were divided, as the Exxon Valdez landed on a Prince William Sound reef—the refuge has risen in profile to become an icon of the nation's environmental debate.

Perhaps more than any other factor, the idea of this sprawling, undeveloped land drives opposition to development of the refuge.

Fewer than 1,000 people visit the refuge each year, so it is not likely to ever be overrun with rubber-necking tourists. There are no roads, no lodges, not even a campground.

"For millions of people there is intrinsic value in simply knowing it is there in its wild state," said Pamela A. Miller, head of Arctic Connections, an environmental consulting firm in Anchorage.

But Cam Toohey, head of the pro-development Arctic Power in Anchorage, said that if people want wilderness, Alaska has plenty of it. "Alaska is full of beautiful places. Under the environmentalist's rationale, this entire state would be a museum," he said.