Oil Drilling Contaminates Kenai Refuge

WASHINGTON, DC, March 5, 2002 (ENS) - Oil drilling in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska has resulted in more than 350 spills, explosions and fires, according to government studies released by the National Audubon Society and Defenders of Wildlife.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) studies also found that oil drilling is linked with high numbers of deformed wood frogs.

The groups' report, "Toxic Tundra," details a contaminants study and a frog study, which was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The studies point to the need for further study of damage caused by oil production in Kenai and other National Wildlife Refuges, as well as the importance of keeping industrial development out of the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the groups say.

"In spite of all the industry's promises, oil drilling in Kenai and other national wildlife refuges has left behind a disgraceful legacy of contamination, toxic chemical spills, and lasting damage to wildlife and wildlife habitat," said Robert Dewey, vice president for government relations at Defenders of Wildlife. "With such a sorry record, does anyone honestly believe the oil companies' fatuous claims that they'll do better next time, if we just throw open the doors to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?"

Established in 1941 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to protect the large population of moose on the Kenai Peninsula, the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge provides habitat for 200 species of birds and wildlife, including bald eagles, trumpeter swans, brown and black bear, caribou and wolves.

Industrial oil development within the refuge includes almost 200 wells within three oil and gas fields that total 30 square miles. The wells are supported by 46 miles of oil and gas feeder pipelines, a 3,500 foot airstrip, 44 miles of roads and more than 60 individual well pads.

"More than 270,000 gallons of oil, produced water and other contaminants have been released into the wildlife refuge," the report notes. "Groundwater in some areas of the wildlife refuge shows contamination at 10 times the legal limit established by the Environmental Protection Agency."

"Oil drilling in a national wildlife refuge is simply an awful idea," said Lois Schiffer, Audubon's senior vice president for public policy. "There can be no question, in light of these studies, that oil drilling would be a disaster for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."

Seeing as I was replying to your #87, let's assume (I know, I know) that those are the quotes I'd like you to source.

Both quotes were obtained from this site:

Something Is Rotten in the State of Denmark

The first quote is from Steven Schneider's article on climate; the second quote is from the Al Hammond article on statistics. I could also have quoted Norman Myers from his article on biodiversity:

I. "But again, Lomborg seems disinclined to undertake even a fraction of the homework that could give him a preliminary understanding of the science in question."

and...

II. "Similarly, Lomborg ignores or is ignorant of much of the work on extinction rates. (Although this doesn't stop him from sniping at scientists who are experts in the field: On extinction estimates generally, Lomborg writes that, "Biologists have a clear opinion of where the debate between figures and models should end. There are many grants at stake." This is one of many instances in which Lomborg casts extraordinary slurs on the professional integrity of biologists.)"

The Myers article is actually one of the best at demonstrating how flawed Lomborg's analyses are.

Now, you might say "why can't you find a conservative/right-wing critic of Lomborg?" Well, the conservative/right-wing really likes what Lomborg has to say, so there isn't any criticism like that. What the clearly liberal criticism of Lomborg is saying can be summarized as he was very sloppy in his work and therefore his conclusions are highly questionable. But one of the good things that his book has accomplished is to cause the issues to be addressed and to have actual scientists show how a selective use of statistics can lead to such suspect conclusions.

http://www.peer.org/alaska/Norton_comparison.html

FWS: "calving concentrations have not occurred on a relatively small portion (Canning delta and northern coastal margin) of the Arctic Refuge "1002 Area." Portions of the eastern segment of the Central Arctic Herd use the Canning River delta area for calving....Calving and early summer seasons (late May to early July) are the periods of greatest sensitivity of caribou...Figures 1 and 2 show distribution of calves at birth. Figure 3 provides a more complete representation of caribou use during the entire sensitive time period, including use of insect relief habitats by cows and young calves. Dense aggregations of the PCH frequently use the Canning River delta and coastal areas of the 1002 Area for insect relief. (Norton omits statements of the sensitive season, and use of the Canning River delta for insect relief)"

When considering the lynx hair fraud case, it occurs to me that what these people did was to plant false evidence within the confines of an ongoing study. They were well aware of the extreme partisan atmospheres on both sides of the conclusions, that would be drawn by the results of that study, and tried to skew the statistics.

When the fraud was exposed they reacted much the same as a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It is somewhat satisfying to note that one of the seven biologist involved retired, and the remaining six were reassigned. To my knowledge, none remain in the lynx survey program, none have been fired or faced any disciplinary action. As a taxpayer, I find it unconscionable that I must continue to pay the salary drawn by these lawbreakers. The liberals gnash their teeth about widespread corporate fraud, but turn their back on fraud at the hands of these public employees because it serves to further their political agenda. If these biologist were corporate employees, they would be fired and possibly facing criminal charges.

Their attempt at characterizing this as a purely academic excerise flies in the face of all of the people whos lives and rights would have been directly effected if the fraud had not been exposed.

As an interesting side note, I was not suprised to read that Washington Rep. Bob Sump, Republican co-chair of the Natural Reesources Committee, was contacted by a taxidermist who alleged that a state biologist had asked him for grizzly bear fur samples. The taxidermist refused the request, and then called Mr. Sump.

The requested sample could have potentially been used to taint a grizzly habitat study in Washington state that encompasses 3,600 square miles of public lands.

IMO anyone who believes the people perpetuating these environmental myths, are believing a horendous lie. How many times do we have to expose the fraud and bias of skewed statistics before these people pull their heads out of their academic sand? Much like the norse mythology of old, these tales of environmental doom and gloom will be entertainment read as bedtime stories to future generations of children.

To put your submitted photos in the proper perspective, winter on the north coast typically lasts from mid-August until the end of May. If summer falls on a weekend, we have a barbecue. In Wainwright, Atqasuk, Barrow, Nuiqsut, Prudhoe Bay and Kaktovik, all north coast populated regions, the sun sets in mid December and does not raise again until the end of January.

In my years of employment in the north coast oilfields, I have seen sub zero temperatures as late as June and as early as August. I have seen it snow in all twelve months. The ecologists perfoming their biased studies at taxpayer expense, on the other hand, are only in evidence May through August. It makes me wonder what we pay them to do for the rest of the year.

Submittal of unauthorized study samples during interagency lynx survey
FACT SHEET
WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091

These are the facts of the case. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also concluded that no attempt was made to defraud or change the statistics of the field study.

Clearly, the employees that have been disciplined acted improperly. But the scope of what they did has been mistakenly reported and exaggerated.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also concluded that no attempt was made to defraud or change the statistics of the field study.

Just in case you have never seen a statement like this before, we in private business refer to it as a CYA statement. Tell me you don't believe it was only in their own best interest for The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to publish this "fact sheet".

WDFW's own review of the incident led to corrective actions for two biologists and one supervisor for the submittal of the unauthorized samples. The biologists were removed from the study and other corrective actions including mandatory training, and reassignment of work activities were taken.

The fact that all of these biologists were removed from the lynx study program and "other corrective actions" were taken is called an admission of guilt. In case you missed it the first time I will repeat, if these biologist were corporate employees, they would be fired and possibly facing criminal charges. Why is it that we expect and accept less from these taxpayer supported employees than from employees in the private sector of business?

Thanks for the link. Good read.

In the "Special Concept Introduction" issue of NanoTechnology Magazine among several very fascinating articles: "Empirical Evolutionary Chemistry" .... "Chemistry involves a multi step procedure that takes place over a period of days or months. Nanotechnology may allow millions of parallel experiments in fractional seconds."

It's an interview with Forest Bishop. Experimentation, being the bedrock of scientific research and discovery, takes an exponential-quantum leap forward when conducted at the molecular or atomic levels.

FORREST There's two interviews on the Web page or you can download a sample issue of the magazine in that's a pdf file: (-PDF format, 1-meg-) -- Nanotechnology Editorial Samples

This being accomplished, and all those trillions of gallons of oil free for the taking (which is what we're doing) leaves no real need to screw up Alaska.

Do your friends call you "Pollyana?" Or are you just naive. We will NEVER be able to depend on oil coming from outside the US. Think of pipelines in Afghanistan and whether or not they will EVER be safe. The Middle East HATES us, no matter what we do and will constantly be battling against us to destroy us any way they can.

"It's really easy to find online sources of reporting on this incident that will demonstrate the truth of my statement. Do you want me to do that, or do you want to research it yourself?"

One can find "online sources of reporting" on almost anything. The key factor is how credible those sources are. If there is TESTIMONY UNDER OATH of the agents responsible, then I might buy it. I have no doubt that the "Fish and Wildlife" bureaucracy has been mostly taken over by "green nuts" whose real mission in life is to see that no human sets foot on as much of the land area of the US as possible.

"At least one spill was 2,000 gallons of crude oil, from a "flowline break", according to the report."

Which is less than 1% of the reported total "contamination".

"The report doesn't describe the area that was contaminated, but does say that over 100,000 tons of soil have been contaminated."

Whooppeee! That "sounds" like a lot, doesn't it. How many ACRES out of the total area of the Kenai were contaminated??? THAT is the statistic that is meaningful--not how many gallons were spilled and how many tons of soil were "contaminated".

"As a taxpayer, I find it unconscionable that I must continue to pay the salary drawn by these lawbreakers. The liberals gnash their teeth about widespread corporate fraud, but turn their back on fraud at the hands of these public employees because it serves to further their political agenda. If these biologist were corporate employees, they would be fired and possibly facing criminal charges.

I concur. They should be somewhere "making small rocks out of big ones".

"More than 270,000 gallons of oil, produced water and other contaminants have been released into the wildlife refuge," the report notes.

270,000 gallons over how many years? Let's say 20 years. That's 7300 days or roughly 37 gallons a day. The Kenai website says there are 200 miles of wilderness. So, that's 0.185 gallons PER MILE, or 47 tablespoons per 5,280 feet. Sounds like a lot to me. /sarcasm. (Of course, I know the "spills" are isolated with smaller areas getting more than 1 tablespoon, but . . . well, you get my drift.)

"Actually, I'm quite good at being able to evaluate what more than a dozen PhDs. in several nanotechnology related fields put forth in layman's terms. Want to see nanotechnology in action? Look in the mirror, look at a plant, look at a living cell. Wet nanotechnology. Then there's dry nanotechnology. And nano-tubes have been available for three or four years. Twelve years ago IBM moved 32 atoms into position to spell IBM. Forty two years ago Richard Feynman "spawned" the nano technology concept."

I'm a PhD chemist--and have been following "nano-tech" and "micromachined devices" since the concept was initiated. Thus far, it has been a GREAT tool for sucking tax dollars into grants to support science, but the ROI has been pretty much non-existent.

Thus far it has all been "gee whiz looky what I can make and take sexy pictures of".

And I DON'T include cell biology as being part of nanotech. Growing buckeytubes is a hell of a long way from "autonomous cell repair machines". "IF" it can be done at all, my guess is nearer to 75-100 years to show major results.

I can understand your concern in the preservation of wild places, but why pick on my state. I've got a better idea that is a little closer to your home. You should start a drive to relocate 4,766,356 people from your state to some other state. Then you could have some of those wild places right there at home, and your state would have the same population density of my state, of course you would have to turn an additional 8,038 square miles of your state over to government agencies, and they could lock that land up with innocous environmental studies and publish biased statistics and skewed studies to insure that you would never set foot on their property.

Alaska area in square miles 615,230 I don't know if this figure is at low tide, high tide or a mean average. Alaska has more coast line than the lower 48 states combined, that combined with the extreme low tides because of its northern location, cause the state to increase in size by 33% at extreme low tide.
Maryland area in square miles 12,297 I could find no statistics relating to the tides in Maryland. It would take 50+ Marylands to make one Alaska.

Alaska population per latest census data 500,043 I wonder if they looked everywhere?
Maryland population per latest census data 4,781,468 With all them folks crowded so close together, you have to wonder if they counted all of them. I hate to think of what it would be like to have 8 1/2 more people living in my house.

Alaska public land in acres 248,286,863 This figure does not include inland water, which would require an additional 28,707,840 acres.
Maryland public land in acres 199,417 This figure does not include inland water which would require an additional 1,614,080 acres if state law allows for no private ownership of navigable waters.

Again, based on my limited exposure to the oil patch in Wyoming, back in the 70s. A lot of drilling mud was just allowed to pool in ponds, where the water evaporated, leaving a layer of bentonite to dry, much like nature herself did.

Interesting stuff. I had seen some information about the parallel processing but I haven't read up on it lately. Thanks for the links. One interesting thought came from a book called "Assemblers of Infinity" (forgot who wrote it at the moment". Basically, the idea was that it would be much faster and cheaper to send spore sized nano-probes to colonize the galaxy than any other way. Also, it had an interesting strategy on how to defend against them. Take some of the nano-probes and selectively evolve them so they only attack other nano-probes instead of animal flesh.

True. And nobody ever comments about all the oil wells the Iraquis set on fire during the Gulf War.

I lived in Valdez for 18 years.

My husband worked up there every summer until 1992. He was there for the oil spill "cleanup." It was a money-maker for EVERYBODY. The big winners, of course, were the enviro-wackos, who cleaned up on Exxon. The locals were charging $250 a night for a bed in a mobile home, more if the house was stickbuilt. The fishermen didn't fish the salmon run that year because they could make $1000 a day renting out their boats to the cleaning crews.

The steam cleanup on the beaches did terrible damage to the beaches by killing all the normal bacteria (including oil-eating microbes) and sterilizing the gravel.

The cleanup of the mammals was NOT, shall we say, "cost-effective?" It cost around $35,000 to clean up and rehabilitate one sea otter. When the big day came to release little Oscar back into the ocean, the schools sent the students to the beach to watch the release. Oscar was released from his cage, and cheerily swam out about 250 feet, where he was promptly swallowed by a killer whale.

The oil was a form of asphalt, the same stuff that companies use to line their water tanks and seal them from rust and leakage. When this stuff gets cold, it hardens and becomes inert.

One smaller enviro group went, with a lot of publicity, to "rescue" some seals and fish that had gotten "trapped" behind a glacial dam which formed a "dumping lake." They made a lot of noise, took a lot of pictures and money from sympathetic dupes, and watched stupidly as the seals casually climbed over the ice dam and swam out to sea. The trapped salmon were caught by these enterprising enviros, and they had themselves a nice little salmon roast by the side of the little lake, which, incidentally, dumped about two weeks later.

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