Las Vegas Sun

November 30, 2009

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Letter: Drilling doesn’t have to harm environment

Saturday, Dec. 31, 2005 | 9:02 a.m.

The Sun's Dec. 21 editorial regarding Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' underhanded attempts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling was right on about Stevens. However, the remarks regarding ANWR were a bit over the top.

Drilling for the oil in this coastal plain would not result in "massive environmental damage." All one has to do is visit Alpine, the most recent oil field to be developed on the coastal plain. You may have a difficult time even finding this oil field because of the very minimal footprint created for the oil production. No roads, no visible pipelines, no refuse dumps.

Drilling and production technology have advanced to the point that surface impact is almost nonexistent. I do not necessarily support opening ANWR to drilling, but I do wish that the discussion would stick to the facts rather than extremist buzzwords.

By the way, there are no reindeer in ANWR, but there are many thousands of caribou.

Jim Beckham

Henderson

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