Columnist Paula DelGiudice: Speak out against drilling in Arctic

Paula DelGiudice

Thursday, April 12, 2001 | 10:08 a.m.

Paula DelGiudice's outdoors notebook appears Wednesday. Reach her at desertdenizens@aol.com.

With the energy crisis bringing new emphasis to the understanding that our dependence on fossil fuels is not sustainable, the focus has turned more sharply toward drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). We hear little about developing sustainable long-term solutions such as the use of alternative energy sources or conservation when short-term solutions, such as developing known supplies of oil and gas, are available and are guaranteed to line oil producers' pockets.

Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been controversial in the past because it cannot be accomplished without some high costs to people of the Arctic -- 7,000 people living in 15 villages along the interior of Alaska and Canada known as the Gwich'in.

The Gwich'in depend on the caribou of the Porcupine Caribou Herd whose calving grounds are on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- not only because they need the caribou as a food source, but because they see themselves as inseparable from the caribou.

The 130,000 caribou of the Porcupine herd migrate thousands of miles to the ANWR annually to give birth to their young.

"We've always lived like this," said Faith Gemmill, who is from the Gwich'in settlement of Arctic Village, located just south of the refuge and along the caribou migration route. "We even have a creation story that we came from the caribou," Gemmill told "The Witness" magazine.

Caribou also makes up as much as 80 percent of the Gwich'in diet.

While there are some who believe that drilling for oil in the ANWR would be compatible with preserving the caribou herd, scientists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service believe that oil development "would be a major, adverse impact" on the Porcupine Caribou Herd, reducing the birth rate and possibly changing the caribou's migration route.

The cause for concern is real. President Bush's proposed budget for 2002 includes revenues from oil exploration leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- meaning the White House already assumes oil development in this pristine area will proceed.

The costs to the caribou and the Gwich'in people could be devastating. And for what? The U.S. Geological Survey indicates that there are 3.2 billion gallons of economically recoverable oil lying beneath ANWR, about the amount the U.S. burns in five months. In addition, even if exploration began today, oil would not actually flow for at least seven years -- not soon enough to solve our short-term needs.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, "America needs an energy strategy, not a drilling frenzy. We cannot drill our way to energy security in the Arctic or anywhere else. The United States has between two and three percent of the world's known oil reserves, but consumes about a quarter of the world's annual oil production.

"The best way to meet our future energy needs is to develop new and existing alternative sources and to better conserve the energy we have."

This is one issue that will be very visible in months to come. Our Congressional representatives could play a major role in protecting this special place on our Earth -- for its values that far outweigh the ones that can be bought and developed. They need to hear from you.

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