Tell BLM to choose protection, not Big Oil profits for western Arctic

Another Spectacular Wild Place Goes on the Energy Auction Block

Over the past two years, the best predictor of where the Bush administration’s energy leasing frenzy will strike next is matchless beauty or world-class wildlife values. Or both. This time, it’s both.

The administration now proposes to lift nearly all restrictions to drilling in a 4.6-million-acre area in the western Arctic, in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). The area supports extraordinary wildlife populations that, in turn, have supported Alaska Native people for thousands of years. We have only until Monday, August 23, to register our opposition to this appallingly bad idea. And we need your help. Please tell the Bureau of Land Management that this is no place to sacrifice to oil and gas development.

Photo below: National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, near Nuiqsut. Photo courtesy of Arthur Hussey, Northern Alaska Environmental Center.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Select Alternative A for northeast planning area of the NPR-A

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

I strongly oppose your preferred alternative for amending the oil and gas leasing plan for the northeastern planning area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). I urge you to select Alternative A, the No Action Alternative, and to prepare a new plan that will strengthen the existing environmental and wildlife protection in the area, especially in the critical and fragile Teshekpuk Lake region.

The risk to wildlife is simply too great, the consequences too likely to be irreversible. The Interior Department's own data, gathered between 1999 and 2003 indicate that on average, 47 percent of the brant and 44 percent of the white-fronted geese now molt on lakes that would be partly or wholly unprotected in your preferred alternative.

Further, the preferred alternative would diminish protection for the caribou by fully 75 percent. Neither of these risks is acceptable and neither is necessary. The Inupiat Eskimo people rely on the 45,000-member herd for subsistence and have done so for 8000 years.

The entire Teshekpuk Lake Surface Protection Area deserves your most careful protection. Yet, your preferred alternative would reduce protection to a scant 213,000 acres, less than five percent of the planning area. That level of protection will not begin to protect the geese, the caribou or the dozens of other species that now find safety there. Available science clearly indicates that geese are highly sensitive to disturbance during the molt. And it shows that caribou that give birth to their young in this area are also at risk from the kind of disturbance your preferred alternative would permit.

At the same time, there is no science to show that these areas, closed under the existing leasing plan, can be safely opened. Your proposal would jeopardize a globally significant ecological resource.

Please choose Alternative A, the No Action Alternative, in this plan.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
August 04, 2004

Background Information

The core of America’s western Arctic lies in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA). Encompassing 23 million acres, the NPRA is the nation’s largest expanse of unprotected public land. In 1976, the Congress transferred management of the NPRA to the Interior Department and mandated “maximum protection” of fish, wildlife and other surface values during petroleum exploration of the reserve.

The Bush administration’s extreme oil and gas leasing plans endanger the western Arctic. The administration plans to lease virtually every acre, threatening the reserve’s rich biological resources and its well-known wildness. We need a balanced approach to management here to protect the most sensitive areas, resources and cultures.

Trading Priceless Wildlife Habitat for Industry Profits
In all, the reserve spans 23 million acres. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has prepared a new drilling proposal that would affect a crucial 4.6-million-acre piece of the reserve in what is called the Northeast planning area. Most of it is already open to drilling. This proposal would eliminate nearly all the current protections for the area’s critically important wildlife habitat. It would:

Open 96 percent of the northeast planning area to oil and gas development (up from 87 percent today);
Reduce protection for critical wetland habitat of Teshekpuk Lake by 75 percent;
Allow all environmental regulations to be waived for economic reasons; and
Allow permanent gravel roads for exploration and development and allow gravel extraction, pipelines and road crossings in sensitive buffer zones.

Teshekpuk Lake: No Equal on the Planet
Scientists rate Teshekpuk Lake area as one of the most important tundra-wetland ecosystems remaining in the world. It comprises coastal lagoons, deepwater lakes, sedge grass meadows and braided rivers and streams. This habitat provides critical calving grounds for the 45,000-strong Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd.

Polar bears find a place here, too, wandering the coastal areas of the Lake in the warmer months. So do people. The Inupiat Eskimos have lived in balance there for 8,000 years, depending upon the area’s caribou, geese and bowhead whales. The administration’s drilling plan would reduce protection for the caribou by 75 percent and put that ancient subsistence way of life at risk.

Teeming Waterfowl
Perhaps the most astonishing feature of the area, though, is its waterfowl. Geese in the tens of thousands come to the area: brant, greater white-fronted, Canada and snow geese. The geese, including as many as 30 percent of all Pacific black brant, seek these remote wetlands for safety during a very vulnerable time: molting season when the birds are flightless. The Interior Department’s own data, gathered between 1999 and 2003, report that an average of 47 percent of the brant and 44 percent of the white-fronted geese now molt on waters that would be open wholly or partly under the administration’s proposal.

Long-Distance Travelers
Other species that come to the Teshekpuk Lake region in large numbers include Steller’s eiders, northern pintails, tundra swans and rare yellow-billed loons. Some will migrate as far south as the Antarctic.

Humans, bears, caribou, waterfowl, all would suffer under the BLM’s drilling plan. And that’s not guesswork. A National Academy of Sciences report details the risk. “Cumulative Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska’s North Slope,” issued in March 2003, documents significant environmental and cultural effects that have accumulated as the result of three decades of oil development on the North Slope. T

he latest rollbacks become even more difficult to accept when you consider that 87 percent of the northeastern Reserve is already open to leasing and 1.4 million acres are under lease and being explored! Must we sacrifice Teshekpuk Lake to the highest bidder as well? We don’t think so and we need your help.

What You Can Do: Contact the BLM Today!
Please urge the BLM to retain existing protections for the Teshekpuk Lake region. If it changes anything it should be to strengthen, not weaken those safeguards. The deadline for comments is Monday, August 23, 2004.

You can send your comments from the previous page, or send them directly to:
Susan Childs, Project Manager
Northeast National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska Plan Amendment
Bureau of Land Management
Alaska State Office (930)
222 West 7th Ave.
Anchorage, AK 99513-7599

Or submit comments through the BLM website:
http://69.20.72.207/nenpra/default.html