Land Deal Could Open Alaska Wildlife Refuge To Oil
ANCHORAGE - A controversial land swap proposal could open portions of
an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, dividing Alaska natives and stoking opposition from environmentalists seeking to protect the bears, moose and birds that live there.
Supporters of the plan to exchange land in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, which lies just south of the more-famous Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, say they would like the plan to be approved by the administration of President George W. Bush before the election in November.
“The window is the election,” Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, a staunch backer of the plan, said at an Anchorage news conference. “We’d like to have an executive order out of the administration before they leave office.”
The proposed land trade would give 110,000 acres of hydrocarbon-prone uplands within the refuge, plus mineral rights to another 97,000 acres, to Fairbanks-based Doyon Ltd. In exchange, the refuge would gain 150,000 acres of bird-friendly wetlands now owned by Doyon, plus 56,500 acres on which Doyon has pending land claims.
Doyon, owned by Athabascan Indians of interior Alaska, has long envisioned such a trade to give economic benefits to its shareholders while preserving traditional culture and the environment on which it depends.
“You can have both the subsistence lifestyle and the protection of that lifestyle, and you can have oil and gas exploration,” said Norm Phillips, Doyon’s resource manager.
But many people living closest to the potential development — many of them Doyon shareholders — oppose the plan because of the likelihood of oil pollution and the possibility of social upheaval such as a flow of drugs, alcohol and poachers over new roads.
“Usually, the indigenous people are at the losing end of any sort of oil development,” said Dacho Alexander, first chief of the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in Tribe in Fort Yukon, a village of 600 near the proposed exchange parcels.
Alexander said the dispute illustrates the perennial clash between corporate goals and noneconomic Native values.
The Yukon Flats basin holds an estimated 173 million barrels of oil — accounting for less than nine days of U.S. consumption at current rates — along with 5.5 trillion cubic feet of gas and 127 million barrels of natural-gas liquids, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
It also holds unique ecological values.
Straddling the Arctic Circle, cradled by two mountain ranges and bisected by the Yukon River, the refuge encompasses boreal forests that support moose, grizzly and black bears and many other mammals.
Its network of lakes, streams, ponds and sloughs attract Alaska’s highest concentrations of breeding ducks. It has some of Alaska’s coldest winter days and, thanks to around-the-clock sunlight, scorching summer temperatures as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest for this latitude in North America.
Fran Mauer, a retired Fish and Wildlife Service biologist and prominent critic of the land exchange, says the trade plan violates the refuge’s conservation mission.
“I just don’t see that it’s in the public’s interest to do it,” he said.
But Doyon officials say that no matter what land the corporation ends up owning, oil and gas drilling is inevitable in the Yukon Flats.
“Even if the land trade doesn’t happen, Doyon is still going to move forward with exploration out there,” Phillips said.
Reporting by Yereth Rosen; editing by Jim Marshall
© 2008 Reuters
It’s not often that bears, moose and birds can win over oil, young, stevens & cheney (young, stevens & cheney sounds like a bunch of illegal lawyers). This cycle has been repeated many times in the past. Take almost everything away from native peoples, make them dependent on you, then take away what little is left. I’m sure young will get his executive order sooner than he expects.
As long as Canada cant let its unwashed sealers near them, they are better off.
Shame Canada–supports whaling and sealing.
Since when did this admin care about any form of life…be it human or creature…
With their record, they need to be figuring gas prices on how many humans/creatures per gallon of gas.
Our earth is being laid to waste to make “them” rich.
I am of the opinion that we are engaged in a fighting retreat on this one. There is little doubt in my mind that these lands are going to be exploited. Now, or one hundred years from now, when oil is $1000 barrel (plus inflation). The only thing we can do is try to hold out as long as possible so that the technology improves and the impact is lessened.
For a visceral view of how big oil and mining affects a Native Alaskan village, the humans and the wildlife of the Arctic, read award-winning novel “Flight of the Goose” - http://www.lesleythomas.alaskawriters.com
I would like to point out that our great Alaska Representative from Alaska, Don Young, is the same Representiative who was behind funding for “The Road to No Where”; and when questioned about this egregious political Congressional earmark by a reporter, replied to the reporter’s question by saying ‘Stuff it in your ear! Now that is good example of political arrogance that we have today.
Is this the type of response we want from our Representatives?
It was also Don Young who enabled legislation for the development of a Florida road, that has nothing to do with the affairs of Alaska, but whose large political, financial, beneficiary, had made a large contribution to Representative Don Young. Perhaps that is an irrrelevant coincidence. Just like the coincidence of Senator Ted Stevens being investigated for political benefits to a ‘friend’.
The history of commercial development has, all too frequently, been of no great benefit to the indigenous inhabitants, but the companies involved have almost always done very well financially. But then profit, particularly personal profit, has been the successful aim.
Remeber Exxon Valdez? The case is still continuing. Acceptance of corporate responsibility is a legal game.
What are our principles? Anyone care to start naming any? Or do we have none?
If you feel the urge to be upset with these corperate clowns please to remember Bush is not a king. Please take a look at a pending bill in the House of Representatives authored by Ed Markey that will end this nonsense- it has massive support nationaly- just email your congressperson- let’s fight this noise- click on text to read- also click on cosponsers to view the who’s who in the House- freedom in the house!
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d110:6:./temp/~bdUOdF::|/bss/d110query.html|
Aren’t Young and Stevens on their way to jail for something? If not, they should be; corrupt bastards!
If you want to see arrogant and downright rude people who are in charge of everything, go to Alaska, the state that has a really bad safety record, thanks to the cheap Republicans that run the red state.
It costs a little more to put safety measures into place, and god knows the Republicans aren’t into putting money into anything (except their bank accounts). Last summer there were a bunch of tourists that died in Alaska in preventable accidents.
The state is a disgrace. In addition, Alaska is at the bottom of the list, #49, in regards to their safety record for children. Only Mississippi is worse at #50.
“The Yukon Flats basin holds an estimated 173 million barrels of oil — accounting for less than nine days of U.S. consumption at current rates — along with 5.5 trillion cubic feet of gas and 127 million barrels of natural-gas liquids, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
It also holds unique ecological values.”
Put a price on the animals and the land? You can’t because they are beyond such a petty thing as money, just as pollution is beyond cost. After Alaska it’ll be some other part of the Earth that used to mean everything to everybody there. Now the best we can hope for is that it means something to somebody somewhere, enough to stop the impending insults to life and the Earth. The land is our freedom. Big oil and the big business that has become politics is fighting the land and those who depend on it the same way they are fighting the freedoms of all people all the time.
What we do to others we do to ourselves. What we do to ourselves we do to others. What we do to the Earth we do to our children.
A correction to the Ed Markey bill in the House- the link takes you to The Library of Congress home page- Type in H.R. 39 Udall-Eisenhower Artic Wilderness Act- it has 147 cosponsers and it has very broad across the board support- this story also omits pending court challanges by such groups as Earthjustice, NRDC, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity et.al.- fear not:
http://thomas.loc.gov/
Money, oil and gas vs native people, environment and animals.
The winner is already decided, now how many species will become endagered (more then currently) or extinct because of this. Who cares OIL and MONIES.
Well, you can forget about the animals because big oil wants the money and americans want the gas/energy.
If several of the theories about Dec. 21, 2012 and the Mayan Calendar are correct, we won’t have to put up with these greedy bastards much longer. Even their great wealth will not allow them enough time to construct their escape/survival pod in Earth-orbit.
Big oil runs the state of Alaska and will continue to run it in the future.Stevens and Young have been their puppets for years.The indigenous people of Alaska, that oppose these corrupt people will unfortunately, lose out.
kelmer… I’m mystified by your post. I’m not familiar enough with your past posts to know where you’re coming from but this seems an odd place for your “shame Canada” statement… care to illuminate?
Yes indeed the great Rep. Don Young mentioned in this article is the subject of an FBI investigation for kickbacks and bribe taking and along with the rest of the Alaskan congressional delegation all Republicans are on record as indicted or under investigation for basically acting as lobbists for Artic oil development- check out the lastest on Young:
http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/fbi/young/story/9447181p-9358502c.html