Eye On CameraWare -- feature

The Alaskan Controversy

Written by: Ashton Monroe

The largest State in the U.S. that has supplied the American economy for most of the past decade is now in a dire situation as it has run out of power. Rolling blackouts have occurred for the first time since the Second World War. The water levels in the reservoirs throughout the American west are at record lows. The lights are going out across California in rolling blackouts. The faltering American economy desperately needs to find new sources of fuel. Bush recently met with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien to discuss a possible solution. Prime Minister Jean Chretien indicated that Canada would welcome the opportunity to sell gas to the United States by tapping into the natural gas reserves in the NorthWest Territories. However, President Bush feels it is unlikely that Canadian natural gas would represent the solution. Bush wants to drill for oil in the ANWR as part of his new energy policy. Jean Chrétien has consistently opposed opening up the wildlife preserve. The potential oil reserves in the ANWR appear vast at first glance: between 4.3 billion and 11.8 billion barrels of oil; the United States consumes about seven billion barrels a year. The Alaskan oil may then represent as little as 180 days of the oil supply needed to keep the American economy lubricated or as much as 18 months' supply.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of America's last unspoiled places. Located on Alaska's northern rim, it is one of the last true wilderness areas on Earth. Its awe-inspiring landscape, traversed by dozens of rivers - and untouched by roads or
development - contains forests, glaciered peaks and windswept tundra. The heart of this spectacular wilderness is its coastal plain, a 25-mile band of tundra wetlands that provides the most important birthing and nursing ground for Arctic wildlife. Every year the coastal plain explodes with an extraordinary diversity of life as Arctic animals return in search of food and sanctuary. More than 300 musk ox, a species once nearly extinct, which live year-round on the coastal plain. The most important onshore denning area for Beaufort Sea polar bears. In fact, the refuge is the largest polar bear denning area in the United States. Polar bears are very sensitive to human activity. If disturbed, females may abandon their dens, leaving cubs to die. There are 135 bird species, including Snow geese, sandhill cranes and red-throated loons, which nest in the Arctic Refuge coastal plain. They migrate annually to most states, a number of South American countries, and the Pacific Rim. The Porcupine River caribou herd. The coastal plain of the refuge serves as the spring calving ground for 130,000 Porcupine River caribou, named after the Porcupine River region in Canada where the herd spends the winter. For thousands of years, the herd has traveled 800 miles round-trip to escape predators and mosquitoes to give birth on the coastal plain. It is one of nature's most magnificent spectacles: Over a three-day period every spring, some 42,000 calves are born. The Department of Interior has warned that drilling in the refuge could damage or displace as much as 40 percent of the herd. The wildlife refuge is home to 129,000 caribou, 300,000 snow geese and an uncounted number of polar bears. The area is a calving ground for a caribou herd that criss-crosses Alaska and Yukon and it is also sacred ground for aboriginal groups. It might also contain vast amounts of oil beneath its ice, snow and tundra. The oil industry wants to drill at what wildlife experts call the refuge's "biological heart," an area that has been closed to oil operations since the refuge was established in 1960.

Global Warming/Pollution
Drilling operations annually discharge into the air more than 43,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, which contribute to smog and acid rain, and 100,000 metric tons of methane, which contributes to global warming; Some 1,600 spills from 1994 to 1999 involving 1.2 million gallons of oil, diesel fuel, acid, biocide, ethylene glycol, drilling fluid, produced water and other materials; Gravel fill, excavation and waste disposal alone have destroyed 12,000 acres of wildlife habitat and 508 acres of marine and estuarine habitat. Every day, oil industry operations generate 3,000 cubic yards of drilling waste, which can contain toxic metals and additives; 40,000 gallons of oily liquid waste, and 300 cubic yards of oil-contaminated solid waste and sludge.

What can be done?
Is destroying a Wildlife preserve a feasible reasoning as a short-term repair? Is this the only solution? This debate has the world torn from environmentalists to those who suffer the blackouts. There is no easy answer and no concrete foreseeable one in the near future. Both sides of the argument stand fast to their stance regarding their issues. President Bush has suggested that Canada, the United States and Mexico should agree on a hemispheric energy policy, but Canadian officials are still unsure what such a policy would entail exactly. The solution may be to just find a reasonable, safe route for the pipelines to go through that would make the most sense regarding habitat and without major disturbances to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A simple, agreeable conclusion to this issue more than likely will not surface as the powers that be are not running anywhere near the same pipelines of thought.