David Rich

Hcom 335
Argument Paper 2: ANWR

The United States federal government should continue its current ban involving drilling

for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the bill in dispute asserts that “The United

States federal government should allow drilling for oil in the Northern part of the Arctic

National Wildlife Refuge known as 1002 area”. The wording of this bill is misleading it

attempts to define the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge 1002 area as separate from the

rest of the refuge when in reality they are the same. According to Dawn Smith, a writer

for wildlife preservation, “the effects of having an oil drilling station in area 1002 will

harm not only the animals that enter that area but will also spill over to their homes in

areas outside of area 1002 (Smith, 2007). What Smith writes is that even though the

actual drilling equipment will be inside of “1002 area” the effects of animals losing their

homes in these areas, loosing food and possible contamination from oil by products will

obviously not be contained just to inside of 1002 area.

The drilling will not only affect 1002 area. “In March, the worst spill in the history

of oil development in Alaska’s North Slope forced the closing of five oil processing

centers in the region. Alaskan state officials said that as much as 260,000 gallons of

crude oil leaking out of a pipeline in an oil field jointly owned by Exxon Mobil, BP and

Conoco-Phillips blanketed two acres of frozen tundra near Prudhoe Bay – just a short

distance from where President Bush has proposed opening up ANWR to drilling

(Leopold 2006)”. As we have seen with countless oil spills once the spill occurs oil

companies are almost helpless in containing the affected area. If a large enough spill

occurs in 1002 area it will more than likely spread to other areas of the Arctic National
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Wildlife Refuge. For these reasons we reject the original definition that the drilling will

only affect 1002 area.

This proposition has five main issues related to it. The first issue is the amount of

oil underneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A wide variety of sources disagree

with the amount of oil that is underneath the land there and the amount of oil

underneath that region being extremely important for the debate to drill. A second issue

is the potential to hurt the wildlife in the refuge. The refuge is home to a very diverse

population of wildlife. Little is known about the affects drilling will have on the wildlife in

the refuge. The third issue the proposition brings up is the environmental impact. At the

heart of this issue is, will drilling in the refuge drastically hurt the environment in that

area, will it create more pollution? This issue is timely since most Americans in the wake

of the British Petroleum spill are wary of oil companies’ ability to prevent and if

necessary clean up oil spills. The fourth and final issue the advocate wrote about was

regarding alternative energy. Some advocate placing our hopes and money into

alternative sources of energy while others argue that those sources of energy will not be

able to generate the amount of energy we will need.

The last issue is a matter of if we do open up 1002 area will that be enough for oil

companies or will they use 1002 area as a foot in the door to drill multiple other areas in

the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. To the east of the refuge is another area known as

the National Petroleum Reserve this reserve was at one time home to a vast wildlife

ecosystem and oil drilling kept at a minimum. Now oil companies have been able to

lobby and successfully lease most of the reserve for drilling. “The reserve have been

poked and prodded since before Harding’s day, and much has been recorded about
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potential wells. Only in recent years, however, have oil companies been in a position to

explore it seriously, in part because of better technology, and also because of high oil

prices. In 1998 the Clinton administration opened 19,000 square kilometers of land in

the north-east corner – the section that holds the most environmentally important parts,

including Teshekpuk Lake – to leasing. Since then, 17 exploratory wells have been

drilled (Drew 2005)”. This quote demonstrates how easily legislatures and oil companies

can take advantage of opening the small door such as the one 1002 area could

become.

The first issue is the issue of the amount of oil under the refuge. The amount of

oil underneath the ground in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is unknown. Most

people believe that there is oil under the ground but at what price do we make the

decision that it is prudent that we drill there. As Drew stated in her article other areas

such as the National Petroleum Reserve have about one and a half more oil underneath

them that does the Arctic Refuge (Drew 2005). This shows that it is not as if the Arctic

National Wildlife Refuge is the last remaining area with large stock piles of oil. Other

areas have the potential to have the same amount or more oil than the refuge. Felicity

Barringer a reporter for the New York Times reported “most of the new onshore drilling

of the past seven years has produced natural gas, not oil” (2008). This furthers the

debate over the amount of oil underneath ANWR by showing how little they actually

know when they begin drilling. The Barringer article writes that while oil companies are

looking for oil they will often find natural gas in large quantities rather than oil (2008).

With so many question regarding the actual quantity of oil underneath the refuge and
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the potential to find more oil else where it would be very short sighted to drill in one of

the Nation’s most sacred wildlife refuges.

The second issue will drilling in 1002 area of Alaska hurt the wildlife? Supporters

of drilling often site that the wildlife at areas in Prudhoe Bay where Caribou live have

seen no effect to the species. Local tribes in Gwich'in Nation, who hunt the Caribou as

part of their lively hood disagree. They argue that the areas around Prudhoe Bay and

1002 area are different and the results of drilling will not be the same. “The refuge is

ideal as a calving ground for the caribou because of the lack of predators in the area,

the highly nutritious vegetation that allows the caribou to store energy for the winter and

the long trek home, and the sea breezes that provide relief from the mosquitoes that

can prove deadly to newborn calves. No other place in the Arctic offers these benefits,

and the caribou travel more than 400 miles every year to reach the refuge.” (Linklater, &

Gemmill, 2001). These tribes have been hunting the caribou for many generations and

know both the land and the caribou very well. If we did decided to drill there we would

risk destroying a part of their culture as well as the ancient wildlife. That same year the

the U.S. Department of Interior estimated that the birthrate of the migrating caribou may

fall by 40 percent if oil drilling begins (Linklater, & Gemmill, 2001). Two expert sources

both concluding that the result of drilling would not have little to no effect on the wildlife

but drastic side effects. The Caribou are just one species that live there and as we have

witnessed before a change in one aspect of the food chain can cause drastic results for

the entire ecosystem.

The third issue a matter of the environmental effects of drilling. As stated earlier

in this paper for as much as oil companies would like us to believe that oil spills are a
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rare occurrence they continue to occur. As seen in the British Petroleum oil spill in the

Gulf of Mexico the environmental effects of an oil spill are catastrophic. Much of the

effect the spill has on the environment is directly related to the amount of oil spilled. If

1002 area is supposed to be one of the biggest oil fields in the nation then the logical

assumption would be that any drilling there would have the potential to create a massive

oil spill. Oil spills are only part of the problem. In a report “no federal or state rules

require oil companies to remove leftover equipment, gravel beds and other vestiges of

exploited wells, and it said that companies would need a sharp prod from the

government if they were to commit the $6 billion or more it might take to restore such a

remote region” (Revkn, 2003). In the production of anything this large, millions of

dollars’ worth of equipment and supplies will need to be brought to this remote location.

This will mean more roads, landfills, exploratory wells, rusting supplies all of the things

necessary for production. Most of the time people forget that this will not just be a few

oil derricks it will be a large infrastructure scarring the beautiful land.

The next issue is in regards to alternative energy sources. In 2001 during a

heated debate over drilling in Alaska Wildlife Refuge Senator Tom Daschle of South

Dakota, the Democratic leader, said, "the only solution the president has proposed is

increasing the development of our public lands, including the Arctic National Wildlife

Refuge. We cannot drill our way out of this problem." (Alvarez, 2001). In the past all we

have done in order to solve an energy deficit was to drill more oil or purchase more oil

from foreign nations. If we stick on our current course, that trend will continue. ANWR oil

will not stop future drilling in other areas of the world. There are other options according

to solar advocates “The current worldwide demand of about 363 terawatt-hours per day
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could be met by covering just 0.5% of the world's land area with silicon solar panels”

(Schoder 2001). The technology is out there we only have to continue investing in it in

order to change the way we generate power.

The last issue is, will oil companies be happy once they drill in the 1002 area?

Currently, the consensus is that all they want to do is drill in this one area. However the

reason we are debating drilling in 1002 area is that oil companies want more places to

tap oil from, which shows no sign of changing that trend. As noted earlier in the paper,

the National Petroleum Reserve started out with having only a small area on it being

drilled. Today most of the reserve has been drilled or in the process of being (Drew

2005). The world’s oil demands however are not being slowed by the current drilling

“net oil imports were reported at 3.9 million bbl/d in 2008 with forecasted oil

consumption to continue to grow during 2009 and 2010, reaching 8.2 million bbl/d in

2010”( Primila 2010). Oil consumption is rising at an alarming rate the only way for oil

companies to keep up will be to drill more oil from current fields and begin finding new

oil fields.

The affirmative argues that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will

decrease the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. The affirmative stated that drilling in

the refuge will decrease the nation’s annual import of oil from seventy percent to sixty

percent. We argue that a ten percent drop in oil imports is so small that a variety of

unforeseen events could easily negate this number. For example most likely our oil

needs are going to increase dramatically in the years to come do to our increasing

population. “Energy forecasts call for Saudi Arabia to almost double its output in the

next decade and after. Oil executives and government officials in the United States and
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Saudi Arabia, however, say capacity will probably stall near current levels, potentially

creating a significant gap in the global energy supply”( Gerth 2004). If these forecasts

are accurate and some of the oil fields in the Middle East are beginning to dry up we are

in for a much larger oil production/import problem than foreseen. Furthermore if our goal

is to decrease foreign oil consumption it would be much more advantages for us to

pursue alternative energy sources like solar and wind. Last the affirmative argues that

the oil fields in Alaska are “drying up”. In Drew’s article she points out that the National

Petroleum Reserve contains more oil than the Arctic Refuge the fact that it is recently

being drilled shows that oil production in Alaska is not going down but staying relatively

the same. Proving that Alaska is continuing to produce large quantities of oil and further

drilling is not need to keep the state’s economy intact.

In this argument we have gone over five key issues in the Arctic National Wildlife

debate. The amount of oil underneath 1002 area is uncertain, the wilderness and the

environment will be drastically affected in a place we set aside specifically to preserve,

and we have shown that alternative energy has the potential to cancel out our need for

oil or at the least work with oil in providing our power. Finally we touched on big oil

companies never ending conquest for new drilling sites and that ANWR will not be the

end and we refuted the argument that drilling in Alaska will decrease the nation’s oil

problems by showing that the oil problems ahead of us are to big for one new drilling

site to stop. For these reasons we urge you to vote against this proposition.
David Rich
Hcom 335