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ON SHORE, THE ARCTIC REFUGE REMAINS AT RISK
The Beaufort Sea lies perilously close to the biological
heart of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—the coastal
plain that is the calving ground of the 170,000-member
caribou herd that migrates there each spring. This area also
is vital to grizzlies, polar bears, wolves, muskoxen (an animal
that dates back to the Ice Age), and millions of migratory
songbirds and waterfowl that nest there.
The oil industry has been lobbying for decades for the
chance to drill the coastal plain, and the industry’s political
allies have pushed hard in Congress for such authorization.
Arctic found a lot of “really good studies” but also some
“still-glaring holes,” she said in an interview.
Shell spokesman Curtis Smith criticized the USGS
report. “We think it falls far short of acknowledging the
data and expertise that exists today,” he said, adding that
Shell is ready to move forward safely in the Arctic. “In
the unlikely event of an oil spill, what we saw in the Gulf
(of Mexico) is not something we’d ever want to pursue: a
number of small vessels chasing ribbons of oil. That’s why
our oil spill response plan is predicated on being on site
immediately.”
Smith acknowledged that the Arctic is a “very harsh,
remote” environment and that if Shell had a spill it
couldn’t just call the Coast Guard. “You have to bring everything
with you. That’s been our plan all along.” A fleet
of 16 to 20 large oil-spill responders would circle the drill
ship 24/7, Smith said.
He pointed out that BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig was
drilling at 5,000 feet under high pressure in the Gulf of
Mexico. Shell would be drilling in 120 to 150 feet of water
on the Arctic’s shallow OCS. “The wells we want to drill in
Alaska are considered very straightforward,” Smith said.
But Epstein, an engineer who has been appointed to
a federal advisory committee on offshore drilling, pointed
to a 2009 shallow-water blowout in Australia that gushed
for ten weeks. Attempts to cap the well, at a depth of 240
Working with many partners, The Wilderness Society has
been able to turn aside every bill.
We are supporting S. 33 and H.R. 139, which would add
the coastal plain to the National Wilderness Preservation
System—and thus bar drilling in this unique place. In August
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s new draft management
plan for the refuge opened the door to considering a
wilderness recommendation for the coastal plain. This is a
positive step, but the decision to actually designate the land
as wilderness rests with Congress.
feet, failed, and millions of gallons of oil spewed into the
ocean. Another red flag was the August 2011 offshore
pipeline spill near Scotland in the North Sea. That was a
Shell operation, and the company’s response was widely
viewed as sub-par.
Ultimately, Epstein contended, the decisions on
whether to drill in the Beaufort and Chukchi may say something
about society’s values. Are we more focused on the
long term, or the short term? Is the oil worth the risk of
potentially undermining the traditional ways of Native
communities like Point Hope? Are we prepared to take on
the challenges posed by climate change? The Wilderness
Society, Hank, and others are determined to defend northern
Alaska, but they face equally determined opponents.
Marilyn Berlin Snell is a San Franciscobased
journalist. Her work has appeared
in Discover, The New Republic, and The
New York Times. In 2004, she teamed
with ABC’s “Primetime” to produce
a TV version of her investigation of
a U.S.-based company’s payments
to terrorists in the Philippines. The
program was nominated for an Emmy.
© A.S. Hamrah
18 1-800-THE-WILD
© Lincoln Else