I know that this is the opinion page and shrugged off your very misleading fund raising letter for the Sierra Club but the cartoon of the oily handprint of GW covering the snow capped mountains was funny but irrelevant.
A plain, even the Arctic Plain is somewhat flat, no mountains. Your opinion peice was also very misleading and wrong factually. I have travelled extensively in that area both winter and summer for 20 years prior to relocating to Florida.
Since I speak from experience please consider the following facts.
Florida has an area of 58,560 square miles. ANWR has
28,125 square miles roughly half the size of Florida. The president is asking for 2000 acres of drilling pads approximately 3.8 square miles with attendant infrastructure of a 40 mile long pipeline to the head of the Transalaska pipeline and a road alongside this pipe. This is the equivelent of Disney Worlds Fort Wilderness campground compared to the area of 1/2 of thisstate. Not a whole lot for a whole lot.
Your descriptions of dall sheep being harmed by this is ludicrous. Making noise in
Disney does not disturb deer in Deer Key about the same distance as ANWR to the Brooks Range the closest mountains of any kind and therefore the closest Dall Sheep. Polar bears feed on the ice pack as their natural food is seals. Yes Polar Bears
do come to the current North Slope Oils facilities but a rigid bear plan is in place that forbids any garbage or other attractants usually leaves them ambling back to the ocean. Caribou use the current pipeline corridore as a breezeway to cut
down on the vicious mosquitos in the area. They currently mate under the pipeline, perhaps giving birth there wouldnt be a problem. Carribou are adaptable and the local Inupiat inhabitants of Kaktovik depend heavily on them for food. They dont see
a problem. The Indian tribes to the south the Gwitchen do see a problem and are concerned.
The thousands of miles of roads you mentioned wont happen. If you need to move material and men to the azrctic you do it in winter over the snow using cat
trains. Trying to build a road in ANWR would be the same as building a 2 lane road thru the glades in summer. Why bother when for 6 months of the year it is frozen and covered with snow? All other transport in the arctic takes place the same
way, barged to open ports in the summer and cat trained in the winter. A small airstrip will be needed fed from the Jetportat Deadhorse. Above all lets publicly discuss if we need this oil or not but with facts not wishes in hand.
William Oxley
10544 Paso Fino Drive