The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the largest in
the country and one of the least visited. Located by the Arctic
Ocean in northeastern Alaska, the refuge is again the subject of
political debate. On Wednesday, retired local congressman John
Seiberling and two other Ohio residents, who went to the ANWR,
spoke on campus to oppose oil drilling in its delicate tundra
habitat.
This month the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate
will reconcile conflicting versions of the energy bill. While the
ANWR has been protected from oil drilling in the past, the House
of Representatives voted to allow it, and 60 votes in the Senate
are needed to reverse its previous vote against it. Ohio’s
senators have split in past votes, with George Voinovich
supporting drilling in the ANWR and Mike DeWine opposing it.
Seiberling spoke of the “absolutely mind-boggling,” mountainous
landscape, abundant wildlife and the fragility of the arctic
terrain thaws briefly in the summer.
“This land belongs not to the oil companies, not to the state
of Alaska,” said Seiberling, “but to the whole American people.”
He stressed our obligation to preserve wilderness for future
generations, because if the ANWR is damaged, “It will never be
wilderness again in the lifetime of our civilization.” Seiberling
said.
“You don’t have to occupy every acre of land to mess it up,” he
added.
Athens, Ohio resident Chad Kister spent three months from June
to September backpacking 700 miles across Alaska’s North Slope
this year and wrote a book about his experiences. Starting from
the end of the Alaska Pipeline at Prudhoe Bay, Kister carried
rations for 10 days and planned to survive on wild greens and
fish.
Kister said that fish were hard to find in the rivers
downstream from the oil wells, and he didn’t get enough to eat
until he crossed the boundary into the ANWR, where the fish were
abundant. He also told of seeing deep ruts in the mud and patches
where the vegetation was killed by oil spills, which will take
hundreds to thousands of years to heal in the short arctic
summers.
“I don’t want the same fate to happen to the Arctic Refuge,”
Kister said.
Emeritus professor of history Dan Nelson, now president of the
Portage Trail chapter of the Sierra Club, also visited the ANWR
last June. He feared it might be his last chance to see the vast
caribou herd migrate from the mountains to the coastal plain to
have their calves. With 95 percent of the North Slope already open
to oil development, he stressed the crucial role of the remaining
wilderness for the preservation of the caribou, musk oxen, polar
bears and 135 species of migratory birds.
While the oil that could be extracted from under the ANWR has
been estimated at 3.2 billion barrels, almost half of present
annual consumption for the United States, it would take around 50
years to pump it out. Kister pointed out that an equal number of
barrels could be saved over 50 years by keeping all tires on U.S.
vehicles inflated properly or by raising the minimum fuel
efficiency standards by one-third of a mile per gallon.
All three speakers praised Sen. DeWine’s past support for
preserving Alaskan wilderness and hoped that Sen. Voinovich
followed his example.
“If so, I might have nice things to say about him,” Seiberling
said.
They appealed to Ohio residents to contact their elected
representatives and ask them to remove authorization for oil
development in the ANWR from the energy bill.
When asked what Congress should do to address U.S. energy
needs, Seiberling advocated improving efficiency for fuel and
electric usage; he proposed more money for research into solar and
wind power and in order to get inexhaustible supplies of
non-polluting energy. Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy
is, Seiberling concluded, “in the long run, our only option.”
BOB BARRETT * THE BUCHTELITE
Campaign to preserve the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska
