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Roger Herrera says water argument against ANWR drilling “all wet”
Steve Sutherlin PNA Managing Editor
Roger Herrera doused claims made at a U.S. House Resources Committee meeting July 11 by Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J. that there isn’t enough fresh water for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain.
“Snow is fresh water waiting to be melted,” said Herrera, who represents Arctic Power.
The challenge of working in an Arctic desert was answered by the oil industry decades ago, Herrera told the committee.
In her testimony to the committee, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said ice roads could be used to avoid damage to fragile tundra. She visited the ANWR in April and June.
“Ice roads used in the winter do indeed melt away in the summer with little impact,” she said.
But Holt, a physicist who said he liked to do calculations, estimated that each mile of ice road on the North Slope requires about 1 million gallons of water.
Given that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has estimated that total wintertime freshwater supplies in the ANWR coastal plain at 9 million gallons, Holt said he didn’t see how oil companies could deliver on their promises.
Herrera, testifying shortly after Norton, filled in some of the gaps in Holt’s analysis. Fresh water doesn’t have to be drawn from ponds or rivers where fish and other biologically important plants and animals live, he said. Snow can be melted and used for both drilling and ice roads.
The water shortage is a red herring that the opposition is throwing in the way, Herrera told PNA. KIC well utilized melted snow “Put up a snow fence and in 24 hours you’ll catch more snow than you’ve ever seen in your life,” he said, adding that the technique is decades old. More than 80 percent of the fresh water used at the only well ever drilled within ANWR’s borders — the KIC prospect south of Kaktovik — came from snow.
Snow isn’t the only water source available to drillers, he said. At about 2,000 feet below the North Slope surface, saltwater is present in “unimaginable” quantities. Seawater is another option. Rigs would desalinate the water first.
That’s not such a high-tech process as it might seem. Some 30 years ago, when Herrera worked on a rig in southern Libya, water was desalinated for use in drilling, he said.
“Nearly all the drilling rigs now have desalination units on them,” he said.
Holt also said he had been told by colleagues that routes are still clearly visible on the tundra after the ice melts, but Don Young said the tracks are not from recent exploration activity.
The hearing was the first on the national energy strategy bill unveiled by the House leadership on July 11. Language to open ANWR, one of five sections in the bill, drew most of the attention at the hearing.
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