Editorial 2.11, November 2000, by Monique Musick Arctic Dreams I am still suffering from election night chills. In many aspects I don’t really care who will be sitting in the White House for the next four years; the Congress will be difficult for either of them to handle and probably very little will be accomplished. But there is one issue, that above all other things, is still keeping me on the edge of my seat: will the next president open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration? I know that Gore won’t and that Bush would love to. With the delayed election results only days away I find that my fears may be realized: Bush may very well be the next President. In addition to pleading with Clinton to declare the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge a national monument I am determined to monkey wrench development in that area any way I can. My involvement in this issue goes back several years. As a high school student I attended an international youth environmental summit down in Loveland Colorado. It was a life changing experience in more ways than one. Just being there and rubbing elbows with enthusiastic, concerned, and optimistic environmentalists encouraged me to become more active in environmental issues and causes. But it was the fact that I was from Alaska that was to affect me most directly. Thanks to powerful speeches made by representatives of the Gwich'in Nation and Last Great Wilderness, protecting the Arctic Refuge became a huge focus of the summit. Every attendant, over 300 of them from 32 different countries, wrote a letter to President Clinton urging him to veto the Budget proposal which contained a provision to open the coastal plain to oil exploration. We held a press conference about the issue, and staged a rally in downtown Denver. The determination and energy raised by the group was almost tangible. So when a group of students said that they wanted to come to Alaska to study the issue in more depth, I didn’t hesitate to volunteer to organize the trip. With the help of a student in Indiana, I set up a nonprofit youth organization and started planning the journey of a lifetime. One year later I was joined in Fairbanks by youth from across the United States and the Arctic Quest began. We heard from biologists, geologists, wildlife managers, authors, activists, business owners, oil company representatives, Gwich'in natives, and even conducted a random surveys on the streets of Fairbanks. We flew to Old Crow, a Gwich’in village just over the border in Yukon Territory, where we spoke with the village chief, met with elders and youth, and learned about their traditional ways of life, their dependence on the caribou, their fears about development, and their determination to reject the money being offered to them by the oil companies vowing instead to see the land, the caribou, and their culture left intact. After visiting Old Crow we flew back to Fairbanks and then drove up the Dalton to Prudhoe Bay where we were taken on a tour of the facilities. I almost felt sorry for the company spokeswoman who had to field our questions; for the most part she had no idea how to answer them. (The issues we raised weren’t part of her training. ) From Prudhoe Bay we were flown into the Arctic Refuge by veteran bush pilot Don Ross. We were dropped of in a valley called Sunset Pass overlooking the Coastal Plain. From the ridge behind our camp we could see across to the Arctic Ocean and we spent one day hiking far into the limestone canyons of the Brooks Range foothills. I cannot easily relate how profound it was to experience the peace, beauty, and serenity of that area. I stood on a ridge top starring in awe at the delicate beauty of the land around me. The dirty images of Prudhoe Bay, of miles of pipelines, drilling pads, roads, machinery, exhaust, and smog, sat close in my memory and I shuddered in horror at the thought of such desecration coming to this land. I’d always believed that the area should be protected, but once I saw the land I knew that this area must never be allowed to be destroyed. We all returned home convinced that the fight to protect this land, no matter how difficult the battle may seem, must continue. A video made of the trip called Arctic Quest: Our Search for Truth was just released in February. The film maker, Jeff Barrie of Los Angeles, California, rode his bike from Santa Monica to Washington DC showing the movie and gathering letters in support of ANWR wilderness bills in the House and Senate. Alex Tapia, one of the students who came up on the trip, followed him in a hybrid-electric Toyota Prius. I did a showing of the video at the University last spring and hope to do more showings in upcoming months. I find it hard to believe that anyone, once presented with the facts and alternatives, can continue to support development in this incredible area. But educating people about the Arctic Refuge is not my only hope. The wool has been pulled over Alaskan’s eyes about other north slope sales and oil exploration plans. Over seven million acres of land in between the National Petroleum Reserve and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, land just north of Aniktuvik Pass, are designated for potential oil and gas leasing. That’s right, over seven million acres. It seems that news about these proposed sales has been almost purposely excluded from the mass media. Certainly there is no mention of it while politicians lobby for opening the Arctic Refuge. After all it may appear greedy of them to want to control so much of the Arctic. How far are they willing to go? Will they destroy every inch of this state in the search for profit? What about the alternatives? What about public process? Besides the fact that we could save as much oil as they believe sits below the arctic coastal plain in one year just by making homes more heat tight, there is serious need to reconsider the necessity of drilling in the Arctic Refuge, especially if these other new lands are already about to be opened. To me this smells like dirty politics and purposeful avoidance of public process. We have a right to know what is going on in our back yard. We have a right to influence those events. And we have a right to cry wolf when the jaws of politics are snapping down on the defenseless wilderness that our lives depend on. | ||
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