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North Slope Mayor praises oil industry; pans government Mistaken notion of pristine wilderness results in restrictive development policy; Inupiat can relate to residents of Lower 48 Tom Hall PNA Reporter
Forget wooing Congressmen and Senators to open controversial areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Instead, carry the message directly to the people in the Lower 48 that Alaskans are responsible stewards of their lands and resources. And the most credible messengers would be the Inupiaq people who live and work on the North Slope. Ben Nageak, mayor of the North Slope Borough, offered this unique proposal to the Alaska Support Industry Alliance’s Meet Alaska 1999 conference at the Anchorage Hilton on Jan. 22.
Nageak had high praise for the oil industry’s environmental record on the North Slope. Although community leaders feared environmental catastrophe when the oil industry came to the North Slope almost 30 years ago, “Our fears have never been realized,” Nageak said. “Industry on the North Slope can proudly point to an excellent environmental record,” he said, crediting, in part, the Inupiaq people who “took the position of watchdog on development and held industry to high standards of environmental protection.” Nageak called the North Slope oil industry a good neighbor and partner that has trained and employed local people, and that has contributed to a variety of local causes. Practice what you preach The federal government, he said, does not inspire the same level of confidence in the Borough’s people. Nageak said that we “question the sincerity of government officials who claim they are saving the North Slope from environmental devastation while fighting as hard as they can to cover the issue of cleaning up sites that were contaminated by the Department of Defense.”
He was referring to the Barrow landfill built by U.S. Navy Seabees in 1947 less than 100 feet from the ocean. Nageak said that it was used “to dump any and everything the Navy wanted to get rid of.” Worse, he said, the military admitted that it had kept no records of what was buried in the landfill, and only recently has the military sent representatives to discuss a clean-up.
The irony was not lost on Nageak. “How,” he asked, “can they complain about industry’s environmental record when they are still unwilling to face the pollution they caused in the Arctic?” Do as we say, not as we did Having served for eight years as director of the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife and in other similar positions, Nageak has arrived at the belief that environmental protection and responsible development of natural resources are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, he said, his people favor further development and are confident that it can occur in an “environmentally safe and sound manner.” Yet despite the oil industry’s excellent environmental record and the support of North Slope residents for more development, Nageak said that people outside the state appear determined “to lock the state’s resources in a wide variety of extremely restrictive environmental bills.”
He theorized that much of the resistance to development on the North Slope is based on an inaccurate perception of the Last Frontier. “Alaska for most Americans is more of a concept than a reality,” he said. “They’ve never been here but dream about it as an untouched wilderness — the last great fragment of Eden left in our badly damaged world.”
Nageak concluded that collective guilt may be the impetus behind restrictive legislation. “Many feel that having destroyed the ecology in their own states, Alaska is their last chance to do things right,” he said.
Nageak rejected the notion that Alaska is a pristine wilderness untouched by man. “Our footprints have always appeared next to that of the polar bear, the caribou and the geese,” he said. Yet, the omission of man as an element in the Lower 48’s vision of Alaska is continually reinforced.
Nageak cited an article in a national outdoor magazine which depicted a North Slope wilderness teeming with wildlife and then asked, “Do you notice what is missing from that description? People. My people. The Inupiaq people. We are as much a part of that land as any caribou herd or peregrine falcon.” And like people anywhere in the country, Nageak said, the Inupiaq need to develop their resources in order to sustain a healthy economy. Keep trying to convince Congress? Forget it A lot of time and money has been spent trying to convince Congress to open ANWR and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska,” Nageak said. But those efforts have had little effect. To get Congress to loosen its grip on resource rich lands, Nageak proposed educating the American public rather than wooing Congress.
“The reality is that Alaskans did not elect these (Lower 48) congressmen to office,” he said, “and Alaskans won’t be voting to reelect them.” Instead, Nageak said, Alaskans have to convince the average American that environmentally safe development can and already has happened. “The only people who can carry that message with credibility are the Inupiaq people,” said Nageak. He believes that his people can relate to most Americans on such basic issues as jobs and basic community services, and also convey their love of the land and its wildlife. “Then,” said Nageak, “let them (average Americans) tell their Senators and Congressmen how Alaska should be treated.”
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