USU professors see Arctic drilling as risky
On the heels of a recent Associated Press survey suggesting more Americans oppose oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) than support it, several Utah State University professors weighed in on the topic.
On the campaign trail, President George W. Bush said ANWR could be explored and tapped in an environmentally sound way. We have the technology, then-Gov. Bush said.
The technology includes directional (horizontal) drilling. Horizontal drilling is drilling 5 miles sideways, instead of straight down into the oil, explains professor Mark Brunson of the College of Natural Resources. The operation then can be several miles away from where the oil is. However, Brunson said he has some reservations.
“The question about environmentally safe drilling assumes a number of things, though, that I’m not sure are really entirely accurate. It assumes it will not have any sort of accident. And the accident rates are low, but, nonetheless, there is that risk that’s out there,” Brunson said. “So one of the questions is, do we as a society believe that risk is worth taking?”
The more important factor to Brunson is the risk to the wildlife in the refuge created by the infrastructure for the wells.
“By creating all these wells and all of the roads that would be needed to service them and the pipeline that would be necessary to move that oil out of the refuge and all the human activity associated with that, do we increase the risk to the wildlife?” Brunson said. “What about all those people out there? How does that affect the behavior of the caribou herds?”
Brunson also pointed out there are wilderness refuges being exploited for their resources. For instance, the Audubon Society manages oil wells on wilderness land in Louisiana. But the wildlife on the Northern Slope in Alaska is different from that in Louisiana.
“It’s very easy for us to say, ‘Well herons in Louisiana are not affected by oil production, therefore we should assume that a large herd of roaming ungulate in the North Slope of Alaska also will not be disrupted by oil production,'” Brunson said.
Barry Gilbert, a professor in the College of Natural Resources experienced the region first-hand on a float trip last summer. He said the experience has left him with a strong feeling not only for the Alaskan wilderness but against drilling in any wilderness refuge.
“This can be a nasty precedent for just going into any wilderness area,” Gilbert said. “The question is are any of our lands inviolate, or are we so impoverished as a nation that we set up wilderness areas, and then we blithely enter them [for] just another source of fuel. And it’s very little.”
Gilbert said he is also concerned about the human impact in the refuge. He doesn’t believe the effect of drilling operations in the refuge can be lessened. When compared with other drilling sites, the prospect of limiting the human impact on the refuge is slight, he said.
“When you start getting even the smallest footprint of drilling rigs, you get roads. You get pollution. You get drilling oils and drilling clays that can leak, and you get all kinds of helicopter activity,” Gilbert said.
For Keith Criddle, head of the Economics department, the matter is simply one of supply and demand. The ANWR has the oil to keep the North Slope’s flow of oil open for a longer period of time. Until new forms of energy are viable, the flow of oil from the North Slope of Alaska must be maintained.
The Bush administration has made the argument that because the United States would have an additional supply of oil to tap, the country would become less dependent on foreign oil if ANWR were opened to drilling. However, Criddle said the flow of oil through the Trans-Alaska pipeline is a finite amount, and the amount of oil that would make its way to the U.S. economy wouldn’t change.
“What you’re looking at is not that you would expect to see an increase in the supply of oil coming down through the Trans-Alaska pipeline system coming in to the U.S. economy,” Criddle said. “What you would expect to see is a continuation of the same level of output that we’ve had for a longer period of time.”
As the United States grows richer and the population grows, the need for fuel becomes greater. The demand affects the market, and then the supply of fuel needs to be met. The oil in the ANWR will continue to meet the demand, Criddle said.
Arctic Power, the most visible group in favor of drilling in ANWR and the sponsor of the ANWR Web site at www.anwr.org, has several arguments to the points made by drilling opponents.
Looking at the Prudhoe Bay development, the Central Arctic caribou herd has grown in number from 3,000 caribou to as many as 23,400 in the 20 years the group has been in operation, according to the Web site. As recently as 1995, the group estimated the herd to include 18,100 caribou.
Arctic Power also points to the improved technology of drilling operations. According to the Web site, if Prudhoe Bay were built today, the footprint would be 1,526 acres, 64 percent smaller. Bolstering the local economy with job growth in the construction and operation of the wells are additional arguments Arctic Power makes for tapping the oil under ANWR.
The local Inupiat Indian population also favors drilling.
The US Geological Survey Petroleum Assessment of ANWR in the North Slope area in 1998 showed there was a 95 percent chance of finding 1.9 billion barrels of oil and a 50 percent chance of finding 5.3 billion barrels of oil. While the USGS maintains 3.2 billion barrels is a “realistic figure,” it estimates modern technology could pump between 5.7 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil. In 1998, the United States used approximately 19 million barrels of oil per day, or 7 billion per year, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife department, which oversees ANWR.