I recently read a publication by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (published during the Clinton administration, citation below) that presented a short history of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a summary of the wildlife resources that occur on the Coastal Plain. Not surprisingly the writers conclude that the area proposed for oil exploration should remain forever off limits. They use noble prose extolling our high calling to worship Mother Nature and disdaining our efforts to destroy her ever so fragile home. You get the feeling you must hold your breath because merely breathing on it will destroy it “irreparably” (they like that word).

The article reprises quotes from several preservationists, including one of their high idols, Cecil Andrus, Former Secretary of the Interior under President Jimmy Carter. He said about the ANWR:

"In some places, such as the Arctic Range, the wildlife and natural values are so
magnificent and so enduring that they transcend the value of any mineral that
may lie beneath the surface. Such minerals are finite. Production inevitably
means changes whose impacts will be measured in geologic time in order to gain
marginal benefits that may last a few years."

Anyone trying to get a permit from the Service to develop a piece of land has heard all this before. I have seen similar language used to justify permit denials for filling in a muddy tire rut on an empty lot because some allegedly endangered fairy shrimp showed up in it. That is the problem with state and federal environmental agencies. They are filled with idealistic biologists who cannot bring themselves to balance competing interests in the use of natural resources. No undeveloped piece of land is too small, too disturbed, or too isolated to stop it from being developed. Their only answer is to say no to everything and duck when the yelling starts. Sometimes they win, and sometimes they lose, but in any case, it is expensive. It takes months, if not years, to get a reasonable decision from these agencies on even the most trivial of impacts because the landowner must delicately appeal staff decisions to multiple levels of senior management, sometimes all the way to the top.

So, with that background, we are now asked to believe that the ANWR is so sacrosanct and pristine that even walking on it will do harm with incalculable repercussions for the entire region? I think not.



Without going through each of their arguments, which is easy to do, but perhaps a bit boring for most, I’ll cover a few of the main points. I have the same information they do, but I believe I have a more rational and balance outlook. I am, after all, a conservative.

• First, we are only talking about 2,000 acres of oilfield development out of 1.5 million acres on the coastal plain. The entire ANWR is 19 million acres. We cannot access this postage stamp sized area without destroying the entire northern hemisphere? Give me a break.

• The doomsday scenarios proffered assume no advancement in exploration and production technology since 1960. Comparing dated technology to the current sophistication in oilfield development and product transport is like comparing a paddle boat  to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. Most of the potential impacts discussed in the Service article can be avoided, and has been avoided in other regions around the world for decades. Prudhoe Bay has been an ideal testing ground for all manner of new technologies that minimize or eliminate impacts.

• The area in question is not pristine to begin with. There are natives nearby in the town of Kaktovik. They have homes, roads, power lines, wells, etc, and they hunt the animals in question. The U.S. military has a manned early warning radar facility there. It’s not like there are no impacts in the area today.

• The article mentioned that there is unlikely to be much oil in the ANWR and that it was not worth the effort to get it. Funny, several federal agencies think otherwise. The USGS, for example, estimated that daily production from ANWR would exceed what is now being produced in any other state, including Texas or Louisiana; for many years to come.

• But most importantly, biologists love to speculate that any disturbance of a species’ natural habitat will automatically have far reaching and “irreparable” consequences to the species ultimate survival. This “reality” is held irrespective of the facts or past experience that is almost never so dire. Yet, for a layman to challenge this viewpoint is to be labeled uneducated and ignorant. For a biologist to challenge it is to be accused of being a prostitute to industry. No biologist wants to be accused of sacrificing his integrity for a paycheck, so most who know better just sit down and shut up. Internal dissension is harshly quashed behind the scenes.

In this case, the Service article addresses several potential impacts that they concluded will irreparably impact the entire ANWR. They call this frozen, dark, featureless, and desolate place the “Heart of the ANWR”. Quick. Someone break out the defibrillator. Some examples of such hated impacts are running a snow tractor across a frozen field, or disturbing (i.e. being observed by) caribou or muskoxen. It makes many far fetched assumptions and ignores past experience that had neutral consequences. When challenged, their response is that this time it will be different; irreparably. Right. Do I hear someone crying “wolf”?

I could write a book on all the arguments and counter arguments centered around these misguided policies and rules, but this is not the forum. The bottom line is that most science today is based on conclusions arrived at with little or totally absent empirical data. It’s called Junk Science. True scientific method commands that one gather data and live with the results, even if the results are unexpected. Junk science is forming a conclusion, then looking for the evidence to support it. But, if the evidence is not available, they don’t let minor problems like that get in the way. We have a planet to save.

Many of the policies of environmental agencies are based on inadequate evidence. But, as with global warming, a totally fabricated computer model theory, bureaucrats are willing and anxious to promulgate policy anyway because, in their view, the consequences of inaction are too dire not to act. Problem is, we don’t even know that a problem exists let alone how to fix it.

So, the point of this post is this: Just because a big agency of the federal government says it is so, does not necessarily make it so. The Service’s opinion of the effects of drilling in the ANWR is Exhibit A.

Citation: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2000. Potential impacts of proposed oil and gas development on the Arctic Refuge’s coastal plain: Historical overview and issues of concern. Web page of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Fairbanks, Alaska. 18 October 2000.