Re: IS DRILLING A SOLUTION?

Dave Head <rally2xs@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 15:52:41 GMT, ShazWozza <shaz_wozza@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Jackie wrote:

The Republican congressmen are at it again: they are talking DRILLING IN
ALASKA'S WILDLIFE REFUGE FOR OIL.

You can be sure that Alaska will have its arse drilled out in the near
future, just like a lot of other environmentally sensitive regions.

Environmentally sensitive region my ass. Its just another place that some
people have an idea that if it is changed in any way, that change is "damage".

That's a bunch of bull***. It *is* an environmentally
sensitive area. And while the direct effect may be on caribou
and other animals, the indirect effects of that would be a
disaster for humans.

The most obvious example is that damage to the Porcupine Caribou
herd would be a disaster for the Gwich'in people.

But not as obvious, and something that has only been understood
in the past few years is the effect it would have on the village
of Inupiat Kaktovik. It wasn't long ago that everyone in the
North Slope Borough thought it would be just fine, simply
because Kaktovik relies more on marine mammals than on caribou.
But the same is true of the village of Nuiqsut, a few miles from
the Alpine field. They were all for it back in the late 90's
when Alpine was being built, but today they know a whole lot
more, and people in Nuiqsut aren't so sure today that being
close to oil production infrastructure is a good idea!

NO, its not damage, its just change. They lied in the 60's when the oil
pipeline was being built, saying it would kill all the damn caribou. Hell, the

You are lying now.

The fact is that the pipeline *as* *originally* *proposed* would
have been a disaster! It was delayed though. And in the
several years that it took to get the legal groundwork (which
involved land title, not environmental problems) cleared to
allow construction to begin, the Alaska Department of Fish and
Game began doing field work on the North Slope to determine how
to build oil infrastructure that would not interfere with the
environment.

Guess what they determined almost immediately???? Those crazy
environmentalist were *exactly* right. As a result the design
of the pipeline was changed, and as built it is not the disaster
it would have been.

The fact that the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is a success is something
we can thank all those environmentalist for.

caribou stand close to it because it is warm,

Fantacy is wonderful, but should be left out of serious discussion.

and there are now _more_ caribou
than there used to be.

That isn't true either. There are more caribou in places where
there is no oil infrastructure... but the caribou that used to
calve where there is now oil, don't.

And, they're lying now - the ANWR drilling facility
would be about the size of Dulles airport,

That would only be the "footprint", which is the measure of how
much can be levied with a property tax by the North Slope
Borough. It has *nothing* to do with the area *affected* by
such development. It does not count gravel pits, airports,
roads, garbage dumps or anything about a pipeline except the
exact area covered by supports.

Which is to say: you have been misled *again*.

and the caribou would deviate their
activities a couple miles, and that would be that. No problem.

No problem? If there is a lattice network of roads that calving
caribou cows will not cross, that simply eliminates the *entire*
area. Hence while you claim it would affect an area the size of
a dump in Texas, in fact it would affect something like 75% of
the 1.5 million acres in the 1002 Area of the coastal plain of
ANWR. Not exactly insignificant...

Its just that
the environmentalists / democrats get their rocks off when they find they have

You can claim it is just environmentalists and democrats... but
the *facts* are that virtually every one of the dozens of field
biologists that have done work with caribou on the North Slope
opposes drilling in ANWR. They are all paid with oil money, and
if they do have a group bias it *has* to be towards more
development.

But they say ANWR is not the place.

the power to stop something. They've been riding on a "high" ever since
getting the Viet Nam War stopped and bringing down the Nixon administration,

Thank goodness for that too. What a boondoggle that was.

and now their mantra is to "stop everything". Hell, even the windmill power
generators aren't safe - they trying to stop some of those too. Idiots.

So you are calling Alaska's Senator Ted Stevens, who is the one
putting a hold on the wind mill generators, an environmentalist?
Wow... I don't think you want to say that where he can hear
you!

Wildlife don't seem to need much oil, so it is not really an issue about
taking resources from them.

The odd spill here and there won't cause any planetary extinctions.

I don't you are going to win this one.

They're not, but all the rest of use lose, when the lack of production
facilities leaves the USA defenseless in the face of the Mid-East enemy.

Bull pucky. We don't get that much oil from the Middle East anyway.

--
Floyd L. Davidson <http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd@xxxxxxxxxx
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