Do they just not caribou?

BLM offers yet another plan for drilling on Alaska's sensitive North Slope

Posted by Grist at 1:30 PM on 21 Aug 2007

Read more about: news | Alaska | Bureau of Land Management | energy | oil and gas drilling

In 1923, President Warren G. Harding designated 23 million acres on Alaska's North Slope as a national petroleum reserve. The ecologically sensitive northeast corner of the reserve -- which includes pristine Lake Teshekpuk and is vital habitat for breeding caribou, migrating birds, and Inupiat Eskimos -- was closed to energy development by the Reagan, Bush Elder, and Clinton administrations. But damned if the current administration won't pull out all the stops trying to access it! The Bushies tried in 2005. They tried in 2006 -- twice. Last fall, a judge blocked the administration from its quest, saying it had failed to consider environmental impacts of drilling in the area, and ordered the Bureau of Land Management to develop a new plan. Yesterday, the agency obliged, offering a vague proposal which suggests various options for development. The BLM will offer final recommendations after a two-month public-input period, which starts Friday. So get thee to inputting!

sources: Reuters, Associated Press, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

comment on the plan: Bureau of Land Management website

For story: Do they just not caribou?
5 Comments | Post a Comment

Don't forget the Gwich'in ...

who have been much more solidly opposed to drilling in ANWR than the Inupiat. The activity of Sarah James, a Gwich'in of Arctic Village and a recent Grist InterActivist, is inspiring.

My understanding is that petroleum speculators are now looking less at the coastal plain of ANWR, the annual retreat of the Porcupine herd of caribou, and more at the possibility of drilling offshore. Presumably that would complicate the lives of the Inupiat of Kaktovik, not at all to their liking.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:40 PM on 21 Aug 2007

1923 was a long time ago ...

It seems possible to me that President Harding didn't have petroleum on his mind quite as much as Grist does today, and therefore designated 23 million acres on Alaska's North Slope not as a national petroleum reserve but as a wildlife or wilderness reserve.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes

by GRLCowan at 6:52 PM on 21 Aug 2007

"petroleum reserve"

Very good point, G. As always, we need historical research.

Curious, how ancient laws, written way before their legislators could have had any idea what issues might be affecting us today, have a way of popping up out of their coffins, now to cheer, now to horrify.

Consider how Mitt Romney -- major jerk, who has been lately more majorly jerkifying himself every time he opens that pathetic jerky mouth of his -- , back when he was governor of Massachusetts, appealed to an ancient law about restricting marriage practically to residents of Massachusetts, from, like, the Teddy Roosevelt administration, intended to stop mixed-race couples from running to MA to get married; such a union would surely cause trouble, if a black-and-white couple married in MA went back to their home state of, say, VA or SC. In order to prohibit an entirely different kind of fish/fowl story (or, rather, a more profoundly fish/fish story, I guess), he used that precedent to prohibit the granting of marriages to same-sex couples from outside of MA.

Jerk.

God save America, from the likes of Mitt Romney.

Anyway, never fear, we got married in Montreal. LWD was Best Dog. Our wedding banquet was Lebanese take-out. "Civilization finds a way," selon ce que je pense, et grace a` Notre Dame, Saint Joseph et Sainte Anne.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 11:58 PM on 21 Aug 2007

unfortunately ...

Harding didn't have wilderness on his mind:

The NPR-A was created by President Warren G. Harding in 1923 as "Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 4" during a time when the United States was converting its navy to run on oil rather than coal.

by Sarah K. Burkhalter at 9:23 AM on 22 Aug 2007
[ Parent ]

Petroleum already strategically important in 1923

I stand corrected, or anyway better informed.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes

by GRLCowan at 10:07 AM on 22 Aug 2007

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