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ANWR wilderness expansion sparks debate Despite notice from Fish and Wildlife Service that commentary on oil and gas development will be ignored, viewpoints flow in anyway Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in announcing plans to revise its “comprehensive conservation plan” for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, plainly told the public it wouldn’t consider comments for or against oil and gas development.
But that didn’t stop a lot of people from submitting their views anyway on whether the refuge’s western coastal plain, also known as the 1002 area, should be opened to drillers.
Industry boosters, Native organizations and environmental groups all sent passionate arguments pro and con on the topic.
The Fish and Wildlife Service, ANWR’s landlord, had set a June 7 deadline for written comments on revising the plan for managing the refuge. The agency says the existing plan, 22 years old, needs freshening up.
While much of the refuge already is designated as wilderness, the service might recommend that status for additional areas including the coastal plain.
That’s anathema to Alaska political and business leaders who want to tap the coastal plain’s enormous oil and gas potential. Others, however, applaud the prospect of making more of the refuge wilderness.
Because the decision on whether to open the coastal plain to oil hunters rests with Congress, the Fish and Wildlife Service said in an April 7 public notice it “will not consider or respond to comments that support or oppose such development.”
Alaska’s attorney general has asked the service to start over with a new notice, arguing that excluding comments on oil and gas might be unlawful. The agency had not yet responded as Petroleum News went to press.
No new wilderness Arctic Slope Regional Corp. was among organizations submitting comments opposed to new wilderness. ASRC is the Native corporation for the vast northern cap of Alaska.
In a 15-page comment letter, Richard Glenn, ASRC’s executive vice president of lands and natural resources, said the Fish and Wildlife Service “must be cognizant that … any effort to obtain wilderness designation for the 1002 Area cannot be viewed independently from the question of oil and gas development.”
Because Congress controls the coastal plain’s fate, and because oil development and wilderness are “inextricably linked,” the service should take both issues “off the table,” Glenn wrote.
ASRC together with the Native corporation for Kaktovik, a village inside ANWR, own more than 92,000 acres including subsurface and surface rights on the coastal plain, Glenn’s letter said. While the land holds significant oil and gas potential, federal law bars development without congressional authorization, he said.
A wilderness designation for the coastal plain would limit ASRC and Kaktovik economically, and would impair the village’s subsistence way of life, Glenn wrote.
Further, he contended the coastal plain doesn’t qualify as wilderness, as it’s been home to Inupiat people for thousands of years. What’s more, military activity has impacted the land. The 1002 area “is neither pristine, nor untrammeled,” Glenn wrote.
The Resource Development Council for Alaska, a business association for the oil and gas, mining, forestry, tourism and fishing industries, also urged no new wilderness for ANWR, arguing the nation and Alaska’s economy need the coastal plain’s petroleum riches.
“Alaska already contains 58 million acres of federal Wilderness. This is larger than New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire combined,” wrote RDC Deputy Director Carl Portman.
ANWR oil could reduce U.S. dependence on foreign imports, and the oil can be tapped with minimal disruption to the coastal plain and its wildlife, Portman said.
In RDC’s view, he added, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill “strengthens the case for onshore exploration and development in ANWR.”
Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan also urged the Fish and Wildlife Service to leave the door open for oil and gas development, saying a wilderness designation for the 1002 area would harm the state’s entire citizenry and strain relations between Alaska and Washington, D.C.
‘This incomparable landscape’ Plenty of others also commented on ANWR and oil and gas, despite the federal notice not to bother.
A letter signed by the Alaska Wilderness League and 25 other environmental, religious, Native and business organizations urged the agency to recommend all of ANWR as wilderness.
“As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Arctic Refuge, we have a historic opportunity to promote wilderness protection for this incomparable landscape,” the letter said.
The letter noted that much of the coastal plain recently was proposed as critical habitat for the threatened polar bear, and said the Gwich’in people regard the coastal plain as a sacred birthing ground for the migratory Porcupine caribou herd.
“Management of the Arctic Refuge should continue to focus on providing recreational opportunities with authentic adventure, solitude, challenges, risk and self-reliance for all visitors,” the letter said.
It added: “Oil and gas leasing, exploration and development in the Arctic Refuge would permanently harm the wildlife and wilderness values of the Coastal Plain and the Arctic Refuge as a whole. As climate change continues to impact the Arctic region, exacerbating those effects through further oil and gas development is unconscionable. The Refuge’s value as an intact ecosystem, where the effects of climate change can be studied, becomes increasingly important every year. Furthermore, as we witness the devastation of an ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico and see the impacts on the wildlife refuges along the Gulf coast, the fundamental incompatibility of oil and gas development in wilderness is made painfully evident.”
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