In Alaska area, fear, not favor, greets offshore drilling talk

[babylonsister]

In Alaska area, fear, not favor, greets offshore drilling talk

By Erika Bolstad | McClatchy Newspapers



BARROW, Alaska — House by weather-beaten house, it's almost possible to count votes by driving the gravel streets and tallying up the campaign signs in this town on the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

The campaign signs — tacked to buildings because the permafrost is too mucky in late summer to sink in a yard stake — are better indicators of allegiance than even the most scientific of polls. Yet they signal far more than just a vote for the mayoral candidate who will best fix the potholes and chase the polar bears from the high school football field.

Offshore in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, oil companies, chiefly Royal Dutch Shell, have paid billions of dollars to explore reserves that could rival the oil and gas discoveries of the Gulf of Mexico. Whoever wins the nonpartisan Oct. 7 election for mayor of the North Slope Borough will shape the future of offshore drilling in the nation's arctic waters — as well as that of a village where ancient whaling traditions still dominate daily life.

"The oil industry, if I don't win this election, I think they'll be jumping up and down for joy," said Edward Itta, 63, the current mayor and an opponent of offshore drilling. He faces a challenge from his former boss and the village's previous five-term mayor, George Ahmaogak. Both men are whaling captains.

"The oil industry has been the lifeblood of the economy up here. The North Slope Borough is pro-development," Itta said. "But offshore . . . now that is totally different."

Worried that noise from oil exploration and, ultimately, drilling will drive off the bowhead whales hunted by the Inupiat Eskimos of the North Slope, Itta's administration, in concert with several environmental groups, sued the Minerals Management Service, the agency that oversees oil and gas leases in federal waters. So far, the unresolved lawsuit has succeeded mostly in slowing the company's exploration. Shell has continued to conduct seismic surveys, including offshore work this summer, but the lawsuit has kept the company from drilling exploratory wells.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/52823.html

[Rancid Crabtree]

1. related story at the mcclatchy link

There's a story at the link about Argentina and cars there that use natural gas, 70% cheaper than gasoline, and with less emissions. They've used directional drilling for natural gas under the Great Lakes, drilled at an angle from a location on land...dunno why the oil off Alaska's shores needs to be tapped from the water...less expensive maybe?...but with the cost of filling up and with the rising cost of home heating I don't see how an untapped source can be ignored--not only in Alaska--but all around the continental U.S. With the bailout of the financial institutions, any talk of less taxes or tax rebates is moot--where's the money going to come from...and with potential tax revenue from an increase in natural gas production, and a move in that direction for the vehicles we drive, it seems like a no brainer...but then again...I suspect as long as a dollar can be made the old-fashioned way, the common folk will just have to go along to get along.