Over the years, during the contentious debate about whether to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain to oil exploration, there have often been outreach materials with misleading or incorrect information, regularly from the pro-development oil interests, and occasionally from the environmental community as well. An e-mail that has been circulating recently includes some of these often-repeated but inaccurate statements regarding the issues. The following are some of my thoughts, based on my 7 years working on the Arctic Refuge coastal plain. I have responded in order to the points made in the e-mail:

1) How Big is the Proposed Impact? The map labeled "And Some Perspective..." includes one of the most widely distributed and misleading images attempting to downplay the area that would be impacted by oil exploration. The map uses the figure of 2000 acres as the total impact. This figure comes from legislation introduced in congress that would limit the total area of drilling pads to 2000 acres if the coastal plain were opened for development. However, the affected area would not be all in one place. In fact, depending on where oil is found, the drilling pads would be located across the Arctic Refuge coastal plain. and connected by significant additional infrastructure that is not included in this total area limitation, such as roads, gravel mines to build the roads, pipelines, airstrips, and all the various support facilities needed to run an oilfield. For some perspective, the photos below show an actual oilfield near Prudhoe Bay, with the drilling pads in the foreground, and some of the related infrastructure in the distance. This gives a sense of how spread out the development is in that area, and would likely be in the Arctic Refuge as well. In addition, the "2000 acres out of 19 million" is also misleading. The coastal plain itself, which is where all the oil and most of the wildlife both occur, is only 1.5 million acres.

Oil infrastructure on the coastal plain is not concentrated in one location, but spread out over a large area to access oil deposits in different places, and connected by a network of roads, pipelines, and support facilities. Development in the Arctic Refuge would not occur in one location, as implied by the map.

 

2) What Does The Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain Look Like? Pictures from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have regularly been used to showcase either the natural beauty and wildlife of the area, or the desolate windswept nature of the coastal plain in the winter, depending on the motivations of the parties. Of the pictures shown in the e-mail, it is interesting to note that the first one, which comes from the USFWS brochure on the Arctic Refuge, is actually a photo taken on the coastal plain, looking south toward the Brooks Range, even though the e-mail implies otherwise. The photos showing the interior of the Brooks Range mountains, similar to those which have occasionally been used by the environmental community to describe the Arctic Refuge, do not represent the area proposed for development. However, the photos of the coastal plain included in the e-mail fail to convey either the density or the abundance of wildlife that actually occur there. For some perspective, the photos below show the coastal plain in the spring, when it is alive with nesting birds, calving caribou, and other wildlife.

The coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildife Refuge is a rich wildlife habitat, which supports large populations of nesting birds and other wildlife.

 

3) What is the Wildlife Value of the Coastal Plain? There has been much information available about the density of calving caribou which use the coastal plain in the spring. Bird use of the area has been much less studied and has received relatively little attention in the press. Manomet completed the first survey ever conducted of shorebirds nesting on the coastal plain and determined that there are approximately 230,000 shorebirds breeding there (Condor vol. 109 #1, February 2007). We also estimated that approximately 8% of the total population of American Golden-Plovers, a high priority species in several conservation plans, can be found there, along with about 13% of the Pectoral Sandpipers. These birds are using the habitats shown in the pictures labeled "This is what it actually looks like in the summer..." The first two pictures show areas of tundra commonly used for nesting by a wide variety of shorebirds, and the third picture shows a riverine area commonly used for nesting by several other species. In addition, the coastal plain includes large areas of coastal mudflat which are important for birds while they are preparing for their grueling southward migrations. We are in the process of conducting the first shorebird survey ever attempted of this area and are finding that large numbers of shorebirds use the coastal mudflats to gain the weight they need to migrate successfully. The conclusion that "the area where they are talking about drilling is a barren wasteland" is simply wrong. Most people are unfamiliar with the tundra and the rich diversity of wildlife that can be found there and mistakenly conclude that the large areas of flat wetland are barren, when in reality they are the most biologically rich habitats in the Arctic Refuge.

Well-concealed Pectoral Sandpiper nesting on the coastal plain, and an American Golden-Plover on the coastal plain. It is easy to appreciate why you cannot see these birds from aerial photos of the tundra.

 

4) Impacts on Caribou and Bears. The photos of large mammals in the e-mail are presented in a misleading manner. First, caribou have been shown to avoid the oilfields during their calving period. The caribou photos from the area around Prudhoe Bay show a different herd of caribou, which has a much larger area of coastal plain where they can relocate for their calving. The coastal plain in the Arctic Refuge is much narrower, and there is no place for the Porcupine Caribou herd to go other than the narrow strip of coastal tundra proposed for development. So, while the impacts of development in the Arctic Refuge are difficult to predict precisely, long term studies by caribou biologists suggest the impacts would be significant and much different in the Arctic Refuge than in Prudhoe Bay. An excellent summary is available from the Wilderness Society.

This report also shows some of the other wildlife using the coastal plain. Grizzly Bears are attracted to the oil fields because of garbage, and this sometimes results in conflicts with people that are fatal to the bears. The oil companies have been aggressively attempting to control this problem, and progress has been significant, but a picture of a bear in an oilfield shows wildlife out of its natural habitat, not a healthy situation.

The Porcupine Caribou Herd travels hundreds of miles each year to reach the calving grounds in the Arctic Refuge. Grizzly bears are much better off in the wild, away from human disturbance and potentially fatal conflicts with humans.

 

5) Gas Prices and Arctic Refuge Oil. The final closing statements about high gas prices perpetuate two myths. First, it is a myth that oil exploration in the Arctic Refuge would solve our problems with oil shortages and high prices. According to a May 2008 report from the Energy Information Administration, the result of opening the Arctic Refuge today would be a reduction in gas prices of pennies per gallon in approximately 10 years. You can see a summary of this report by the Wilderness Society.

Second, it is a myth that Arctic Refuge oil could solve our dependence on foreign oil. The U.S. currently consumes 25% of world oil production, but has less than 3% of the world's oil reserves. We cannot drill our way out of our energy shortage, but must aggressively pursue alternative energy sources and create sustainable economic systems based on renewable resources.

Stephen Brown
Director of Shorebird Research
Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences