Word: tundras
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This last section of the book is the least structured. The narrative jumps back and forth from the people of Eagle, to McPhee's solo trek one night across the grizzly-infested tundra to an Indian village adjacent to Eagle. McPhee has at times been criticized for being too organized, too refined, and the freedom he allows himself here is particularly impressive, is warm, human journalism and McPhee's style is an acknowledgement that Alaska cannot be organized into tidy, easily digested sections...
...suffered five physical mishaps, three of which caused shutdowns lasting a total of 13 days. The latest accident occurred last week when an earthmover burying part of the 48-in. pipeline struck a valve. That set off a gusher that spewed hot black goo over 15 acres of surrounding tundra and two ponds before technicians could shut down the line and begin repairs. As it happened, the line had just resumed limited operation after a ten-day shutdown caused by the most serious of its start-up accidents. At Pumping Station 8, 38 miles from Fairbanks, a pipeline leak...
...eventually drop into half-million-bbl. storage tanks in Valdez to await loading on tankers. The trip will take a month, longer if trouble turns up. But if all goes well, an uninterrupted ribbon of oil-9 million bbl. just to fill the pipeline-should stretch across the Alaskan tundra by mid-July. The flow will be stepped up gradually, reaching 600,000 bbl. daily by August, 1.2 million bbl. in October...
Backers of the Udall bill insist that the enormous acreage they seek is essential if Alaska's fragile ecosystems are to be preserved. Tundra, for example, recovers so slowly that a tractor's tracks are visible years after they are made; many of Alaska's animals require substantial sections of terrain for forage. "While 114 million acres may sound like a lot, there's an awful lot to preserve up there," says the Sierra Club's Charles Clusen. "It takes 100 square miles to support a single arctic brown bear...
Cheerful Smile. The teacher stands up to the boss and wins back her man, but not before making moral weather as heavy as a tundra blizzard out of it. "Like a lot of people, I came up here chasing a dream," she says. "Unlike a lot of people, I won't sell my soul...