Can you separate effects of westernization from effects of oil?

Kristen Nelson

David Policansky of the National Research Council got a number of questions April 5 at the Resource Development Council when he talked about the progress of the council’s committee studying cumulative impacts of the oil and gas industry on the North Slope. (See related story this page.)

One of the most detailed was from Mark Helmericks.

Helmericks said he’d lived on the North Slope for most of his life.

“One of the questions that we’re looking forward to seeing in this report is how you filter out the effect of westernization upon the physical, biological and human activities up there, as opposed to that’s the impact of the oil industry.

“What I’ve observed,” Helmericks said, “is that the oil and gas industry gets often credited with all the social woes — the physical, biological, social woes — and that many of these things could be attributed to westernization of that area in the past 50 years.” Helmericks said he’d observed “a commonality of situations and problems all across Arctic North America” and suggested that the committee compare the North Slope with communities without the direct oil and gas impact.

“I think you’ve encapsulated the problem very well,” Policansky replied.

“We’ve talked about what the control is. If we’re trying to look at changes say in Barrow or in Kaktovik, what is the control?”

Helmericks suggested Kotzebue as a possible comparison, and Policansky said the problem with any place in Alaska is that the wealth is largely oil wealth. The committee has “been worrying about exactly that problem and I don’t know if we’ve figured out yet quite how to do the control.” Some place in Greenland might be appropriate, he said, and indicated the committee was looking for a “control” community without the oil factor.