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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
March 2014

Vol. 19, No. 10 Week of March 09, 2014

Nageak knew Barrow before natural gas

North Slope Democrat pushing for ANWR development — it’s onshore; concerned about potential of oil spills from offshore drilling

Steve Quinn

For Petroleum News

House Rep. Ben Nageak is an ANWR child, and he’s proud of it. Sitting in his Capitol office wearing his signature polar bear claw necklace, Nageak reminds people that he is the only member of the Legislature born in ANWR, specifically Kaktovik. It’s a common refrain from Nageak, one the Barrow Democrat takes to Washington, D.C., any chance he gets. This year, he joins several colleagues from the Legislature going to our nation’s capital for the Energy Council conference. He’ll use some of that time to meet with Alaska’s congressional delegation, plus others who may not agree with Nageak’s ardent position on developing Area 1002 of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Also on the Energy Council agenda is a session about North American LNG exports, a subject that is expected to formally reach the House Resources Committee not long after he returns.

For Nageak and other North Slope Borough leaders, discussions of oil and gas have strong cultural ties and implications, something the industry has learned over decades of exploration and production.

Nageak spoke to these issues during a recent discussion with Petroleum News.

Petroleum News: How important is the oil and gas industry for people in Barrow and the North Slope Borough?

Nageak: Oil and gas is very important for us. Going to the schools in the ’50s and ’60s, the only places that had natural gas were the schools and some of the teachers had it. Anyway, it wasn’t available to the village at all until 1964 when Eben Hopson worked to get it.

I remember when we first got it my father ordered a brand new stove. The stoves we had were meant for diesel. He bought a gas range and a new heating stove. It was wonderful I didn’t have to cut wood anymore or get sacks of coal from next door at the store.

We kept warm 24 hours a day. It’s a long ways from when I grew up. The heat would go out and we would be cold. I’d rush across the street to the school and go in the back way because nobody was there. They had a tub there, and the janitor said I could wash my face and drink the water.

My first job in 1969 was working in Prudhoe Bay. Imagine a teenager 19 years old and my job was a jug hustler. That means I carried 75 pounds of cable over my back in a straight line, put them in a ground and connect them. That’s where they did seismic work. I went right past where well No. 1 is. I go there once in a while and there is gravel and it looks pretty, but back in the day there was mud. It was brand new. There were no roads. The airport was a dirt runway. I’ve always worked hard in my life.

To this day the North Slope Borough has done great things for its people. We’ve done everything a borough had never done before — any borough, I think. We built our infrastructure. Most of it was done by our people. We found oil and gas. The regional corporations were founded.

It built roads, airport runways and plants. They fund education. We’ve done real well in terms of being a borough. We want to protect the resource, especially the renewable resources. The North Slope Borough is the only borough in the world that has its own department of wild life management and science department. I used to be director for six or seven years. At that time we created an institution. To this day, it’s a testament for the love of science. We always knew science was good, and it’s helped us.

Petroleum News: You seem pretty proud of the North Slope Borough’s accomplishments.

Nageak: We on the North Slope have been very successful at the same time caring for everything that we think that needs to be protected and cared for: our children, our culture, our language. Everything.

Most of us in my generation still speak our language. I come to this venerable institution — the state Legislature — to continue what I’ve done most of my life. I’m still interested in the oil and gas industry and natural resources in general. Alaska is an extraction state. The people have been extracting resources from millennia to millennia. You live off the land. Our whalers are very successful. That hasn’t died. We continue to live within our means and continue to live off the resources. We go out and hunt whales and hunt caribou — and we trap. We still do that. It’s inherent in us. Our science is good. We are protecting our resources. We do census on every animal that we have. But oil and gas has made us who we are even the state of Alaska.

Petroleum News: Off your coast, Shell postponed their exploration in Arctic waters. What are your thoughts on the offshore drilling issue?

Nageak: What upsets me is oil and gas was allowed by the federal government offshore. Most of our people don’t support that. We need to have a seat at the table. We need to make sure that when they did that we were there when they make decisions and make sure our people are trained as first responders if anything happens. Shell bought the leases fair and square, but some organizations didn’t want that to happen. Again, it was for the betterment of our people. At the same time, Shell was going to provide training for spill response and boats for the communities along the coast. That’s what the oil industry has been doing for years is they help make sure if anything happens our people are trained to respond. They were good neighbors. Then somebody sued. Now it’s stopped. All the things they said they would do — train our people for spills, boats, equipment and everything else — it’s not happening, but we still need it. Do you know 99 ships pass through our waters alone, and all around the coast of Alaska. And it’s continuing to grow. What happens now? We don’t have the equipment or wherewithal to go out and help. What’s ironic is 50 miles away from where Shell was drilling the Russians are still drilling and they are going to find oil and pipe it the same way we were going to do it. There are no constraints over that. None. What happens if something goes wrong? Where is that oil going to go? Is it going to flow to Russia because they drilled it? Heck no. It’s going to follow the currents. Where do the currents go? Right into Alaska’s waters.

Petroleum News: So what would you like to see happen?

Nageak: We need a seat at the table. Our federal government has a system where everything is watched over. Sure, there are accidents everywhere else. But if you watch it closely we can do it safely. Our people won’t get the training or the work that comes with it. The U.S. sold the leases and it’s been for naught. If they are so concerned about it, why don’t they let us open ANWR? ANWR is on land. AWNR is owned by the Native corporation. I’m the only legislator born in ANWR. It’s Kaktovik. My aunts and cousins continue to live there.

The place in ANWR is called 1002 and that was set aside for oil and gas development. There are no caribou there during exploration. They go back to Canada to Gwich’in country. The size of the activity that’s going to happen is the size of Reagan National Airport in (Arlington, Va.). If they are so darned worried about the ocean, help us open AWNR and get to your people in Washington and say this will be safer. Our people will be able to see what happens. If anything happens, we’ll clean it up right away. We will train our people; then you can see it. If you are concerned about harm the environment, help us here.

Petroleum News: What’s driving your message this year?

Nageak: I did it last year. I’ve been doing it most of my life. I’ve been working against environmentalists for a very long time, because they have screwed things up for our people not only here in Alaska, but also in Canada and Greenland. Do you think they are protecting us from anything? Everything they have done has damaged us in some way.

I’ve been involved with the environment, renewable and non-renewable resources for close to 40 years in some way. I’ve been fighting them for all these years. We, the Canadians and Greenlanders went to London one year because that’s where most of the NGOs are. We held an exhibit to educate people about how dependent we are on the resources and how we can do all these things working together.

We had a show at the London museum of history. We found a full-blooded Indian in Canada and we asked the London Philharmonic if he could conduct to open the show. And he did. Those are things we do to make people aware and make sure that people understand how important it is, not only of renewable resource but non-renewable resources we can use.

Petroleum News: So what is your message to people in Washington? What do you want to accomplish?

Nageak: I want to open ANWR. That’s what I want to do. I’ve been trying to do that for half of my life, and I’m 64. I’d like to help my people. You know what’s ironic? My people own that land. They have natural gas right underneath them and they can’t do anything about it. Think about the economic opportunity that can happen for them. They can use that natural gas, change into propane and ship it out.

Think about it. It’s on land at a place so isolated that caribou don’t go there anyway. There would be so many environmental protections. I’m going to meet some people who can make a difference. I’m going to look them in the eye and say, do you know what you’re doing? Do you know what you’re going? You’re cutting off economic opportunity for our people to advance themselves.

The cost of living in Alaska is so dang high. It costs $800 to fly from Barrow to Anchorage and more than that in the villages. A friend of mine posted on Facebook that he was trying to ship something to a village a couple of hundred miles away. He said how much will that be? Six hundred dollars, sir. Economic opportunities are important for our people. There is a monopoly on transportation.

I want parity in Bush Alaska. Everything costs so dang much. Everyone says you can’t go there. You might get too rich. What happens in the Lower 48? They are doing things there and they are thriving, but we can’t do it up here. We need to build roads. We need to open up the rest of Alaska to minimize the impact. But we can’t do it. I just drives me crazy, drives me nuts when people from the Outside say you can’t do this and that. Try living here and spending $6 a gallon for milk or $600 to send something to someone else in another village or spent $800 to fly to another village and attend a cousin’s funeral.

What they are doing is hurting our people. They think they are doing right but they are not.

Everything is so damned expensive. That’s why I’m here. That’s what I want to change.

The environmental groups, they have an endless supply of money and keep fighting us on this. We are all environmentalists, but they take it to extremes.

Petroleum News: Speaking of economic opportunity, what are your thoughts on the prospects of the administration and Legislature advancing an LNG project?

Nageak: LNG is wonderful. I’m for it. We have so much natural gas that we can provide cheaper alternatives to the villages especially along the Yukon River and along the coast. I want to make sure our people in Bush Alaska are provided for. With LNG, you need to build infrastructure to change it back to natural gas, but with propane you can put it in huge tanks and barge along the coast to the villages and they could save tons of money on that. Guess who would have to deliver that, who would have to drive those trucks? That’s economic opportunity.

Petroleum News: OK. Closing with the referendum to repeal SB 21 and the new oil tax regime: You oppose the referendum, right? How come?

Nageak: I’m against the referendum. Look what happened. There is going to be a whole lot more activity. Of course you can say it would be happening anyway. Baloney. People think what we did last year on the tax structure — they think it’s a bad thing. It’s a great thing for our state. We worked hard to get that going and now we are getting more activity in this state.

Alaska is a resource state and we are so dependent on this. What else are we going to do?






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