Word: oiling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...next major battleground will be the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Oil companies suspect that this 19 million-acre preserve, lying between the Brooks Range and the Beaufort Sea on the North Slope, just east of Prudhoe Bay, may contain some 9 billion bbl. of oil, and they are eager to drill there. President Bush and the U.S. Interior Department favor opening up the area to exploration and development. Unlike Bristol Bay, where powerful fishing interests have always fought drilling, the land adjacent to this preserve is home only to a handful of Inupiat. Alaskan politicians thus have had little...
...anti-drilling activists argue that the area is just too sensitive to stand the strain of oil production, even if a spill never occurs. A few roads and airstrips in this seemingly vast wilderness, they say, could cause permanent harm to the habitats of caribou, musk-oxen, polar bears, golden eagles and wolves. For evidence to back their argument, the preservationists point to Prudhoe Bay. The weight of trucks atop temporary roads has cut into the mat of vegetation that makes up the tundra, allowing sunlight to weaken the top layer of permafrost beneath. The result: ever deepening ruts that...
...oil companies downplay the potential problem in the ANWR, claiming that modern construction and containment techniques will minimize the impact of exploration. But environmentalists doubt it, and even pro-drilling politicians concede that the idea of developing the ANWR is suddenly facing stiff opposition. Says Cowper: "There's only an indirect connection between the spill and ANWR. But it will be much more difficult to convince Congress that the oil industry can develop the Arctic in a responsible...
...Washington the feeling is much the same. Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan told oil-industry representatives last week that they had suddenly acquired a serious image problem, and EPA chief Reilly asserted that "we will not move forward if we have any significant concerns that have not been resolved." Anti-drilling lobbyists are increasingly hopeful. Says Sierra Club conservation director Douglas Scott: "This is much bigger than syringes on the shores of New Jersey. It's an important political event...
Environmentalists are not even suggesting that existing wells and pipelines should be shut down. But there is a broad consensus in the state and in Washington that current operations must be made fail-safe and that the oil companies should not be trusted to do this on their own. Immediately after the Exxon Valdez incident, senate President Kelly began to draw up plans for what he calls a Spill Response Corps, to be organized by the state but paid for by the oil companies "as part of the cost of doing business here." And Governor Cowper insisted on a credible...