Wildlife issue aside, ANWR needs saving from politics

Anchorage Daily News ^ | 10-09-05 | Craig Medred

[akdonn]

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a wild and awe-inspiring landscape relentlessly mischaracterized.

Here is the October issue of Smithsonian magazine: "Though ANWRs coastal plain boasts a dazzling abundance of wildlife -- the largest concentration of land-denning polar bears in Alaska, enormous flocks of migratory birds, wolves, wolverines, musk oxen, Arctic fox and snowy owls -- the caribou remain the symbol of the fight over the refuge."

This theme has become the environmental touchstone for ANWR, and it is a fraud.

ANWR is wild and awe-inspiring not for its abundance of wildlife but for the unsettling scarcity of it, for a biological nonproductivity that is almost otherworldly, for the feeling the plain gives one that here exists the very edge of survival for life as we know it.

[akdonn]

This article is very accurate but I don't agree with Mr. Medred's conclusion...

[KC_for_Freedom]

Oil development, though, is certain to kill something more important -- the character of the coastal plain. Once drilling starts, the place will never be the same. The drill rigs will punch the heart out of the wildness, and there will be no going back.

Total BS, there will be wilderness and in the distance oil rigs. It is so expensive to visit that only the very rich can make the trip. Go ahead and drill.

[Texas WOP]

I couldn't agree more. When I was going through the Winter Warfare Course at Ft. Greely the only wildlife I saw were vulture sized mosquitos.

[drt1]

"The result, unfortunately, is that the public policy ends up becoming a liars' contest. So much of American politics seems like that today, and it's a sad commentary on us all."

Duh! Where has this guy been? Does he think he's just discovered this truth? Unfortunately, his article is right about the dearth of wildlife in ANWR but he is dead wrong on his conclusion - i.e., Empty space is to be protected as much as wildlife. Ergo. add empty space conservation into the list of objections to ANY development. Sheesh, where does it stop?

[mountainlyons]

I know people that lived in Alaska and never saw the pipeline or oil industry. The Eco freaks are the ones that put everyone else into action to keep the economy out of arab hands.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Welcome to FR!

"...Winter Warfare Course at Ft. Greely the only wildlife I saw were vulture sized mosquitos."

LOL! Reminded me of the month I spent in LA (Camp Beaureguard) mucking through their swamplands for Land Nav certification. Skeeters galore, as well as Water Moccasins and a few small 'gators. Quite tasty 'gators, I might add...

I did winter training one year at Ft. Mc Coy, WI. My boys thought I was the coolest Mom because after I had passed that course, I helped them build a snow cave to spec, and let them camp out in it overnight in the winter. Fools. Who would choose to do that on purpose? LOL! I do give them credit for making it through the entire night, though.

They were troopers when they were young. Well, weren't we all? LOL! :)

(Oops! Hope no social services types are lurking. These days, I'd probably be thrown in jail for being cruel to my children...just for letting them be children and learn a few survival skills and respect for Mother Nature!)

[SmoothTalker]

Can ANWR solve our energy problems alone? Of course not. But it can help to reduce some of our demand for Middle Eastern and Venezuelan oil and i'm in favor of anything that allows us to send less money to Chavez and to muslim fanactics (who use our money to try to blow us up). This really should be framed more as a question of national security than a question about environmental policy.

[willyd]

The pipelines would be buried in 20 feet of snow that no animals try to trudge through because there is nothing for them to eat there. Also, they are hooved animals for the most part and can't easily trudge through really deep snow. In the areas that the pipelines would be exposed, I assume that the animals would just walk around it like they do with trees and rocks and rivers. Call me crazy, but i think the impact would be pretty much non existant.

[podkane]

I think the whole wildlife issue is a red herring. The real issue is what we're going to get for all the (most likely) taxpayer subsidized effort that is going to go into extracting the 6 months worth of oil ten years from now...

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Think about that: 130,000 caribou spread over more than 20 million acres. That's about one caribou for every 150 acres."

What a good article! It really captures what a barren wasteland that part of the world is.

"Oil development, though, is certain to kill something more important -- the character of the coastal plain. Once drilling starts, the place will never be the same. The drill rigs will punch the heart out of the wildness, and there will be no going back."

I doubt it. I watched a special on Discovery about building the Alaskan Pipeline. Aside from it being ugly, it really didn't hurt Nature at all. And who sees it? The people that work on it and that's about it.

Do Environmentalists EVER look out a window when they're flying? I've flown coast to coast a dozen times, and around the world once, and it's just so friggin' HUGE it's impossible to wrap your brain around, really. We're never going to run out of beautiful, pristine places at the slow rate we're going. Cripes. We haven't built a refinery in 30 years! We haven't really done anything to promote our energy self-sufficiency thanks to the obstructionist, anti-capitalism, lying EnviroWackos who, believe it or not, actually live just like we do...They drive cars! They live in homes! They eat food! They wear clothing! They turn on their furnaces when it's cold and their A/C when it's hot!

If they want to drill for oil in places that no one ever sees and few animals inhabit, who cares?

[okie01]

Total BS, there will be wilderness and in the distance oil rigs.

Agreed. And, despite all the "development" in the lower 48, I can guarantee that there are places within a day's drive of everybody in the country where one can be "alone with nature".

For many, places within a mile. Or a 100 yards...

Look at a map. Or, better yet, look out a plane's window. Most of this country is empty!

[RightWhale]

There is even less wildlife at ANWR than at Greely. The only bear I saw there was a griz the size of an SUV. The bugs weren't out yet, so I can't say if there are mosquitoes there.

[AmericanChef]

-It makes ANWR one of the few places you can still get to that's far enough away from civilization to challenge not only the body but the soul.-

And the number of people who want to be so challenged are fewer than the handful of wildlife who now reside there. Drill. Drill now.

[ASOC]

The land is so desolate - and don't forget the oil seeps to the surface in many places.

Big flap last summer, some eco-freaks were on a tour and saw sheen on the furface of the creek. Got on their satphone and called it in, they were sure "evil oil" was out there doing something illegal. They were so embarrassed - they had found one of the many open seeps.

Dumbfounded was they....

[tanuki]

It's ironic that caribou are being used to justify the eco-freak agenda, because they were originally introduced from Siberia to keep the eskimos from starving to death. Now they're being used to keep them in a marginal existence.

BTW, I love your tagline.

[akdonn]

I've lived in Alaska since 1962 and I agree with you 100%.

[akdonn]

You are correct about the impact. The writer of this article is the Outdoors writer for the ADN and probably tries to balance his reporting to keep credibility with the tree-huggers.

[thackney]

The pipelines would be buried in 20 feet of snow that no animals try to trudge through because there is nothing for them to eat there. Also, they are hooved animals for the most part and can't easily trudge through really deep snow. In the areas that the pipelines would be exposed, I assume that the animals would just walk around it like they do with trees and rocks and rivers. Call me crazy, but i think the impact would be pretty much non existant.

Just a couple points in the interest of information for those unfamiliar with the North Slope. Even though the temperature may stay below freezing for most of the year, total snowfall is typically 20 inches or less. The snow that does accumulate is wind driven drifts. The wind will pack the snow so hard, a grown man can walk across it without making footprints.

Area of new construction, like in the Alpine satellite fields, are being built with the pipelines 7 feet off the ground. Caribou with full racks can walk under them.

But you premise is correct. The impact would be minimal. Mostly this is because of a point in the article.

ANWR is wild and awe-inspiring not for its abundance of wildlife but for the unsettling scarcity of it, for a biological nonproductivity that is almost otherworldly, for the feeling the plain gives one that here exists the very edge of survival for life as we know it.

Wildlife numbers on the plain are, in reality, so low you can almost count the animals on your fingers and toes.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Thanks, Tanuki! It's most perfect as it encompasses both my love of chocolate, and my distain for EnviroWackos, LOL! :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"I've lived in Alaska since 1962..."

Wow! It probably WAS just you and the caribou at that point in time, LOL! :)

My Aunt Joanne moved to Fairbanks in the 60's. She has a full-sized stuffed bear in her entryway; she shot it in self-defense while she was out picking blueberries one day...

She's my hero. Not because she shot a bear, or that she's the most awesome female huntress God ever put on His Green Earth...but that she moved there back then when it really was a strange thing to do, as she comes from inner-city Milwaukee, WI stock.

DH has given me the choice of retiring to Alaska (probably Juneau) or Hawaii (probably Kauaii) and it's darn hard to choose between the two, though they're completely opposite.

If a farmgirl wanted to still be able to grow tomatoes in her Golden Years, where would you suggest she settle in Alaska? (I'm not really into growing cabbages the size of a Volkswagon, mind you, LOL!)