Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Location:
Alaska, United States
Project Risks:
Environmental Destruction, Social Harm, Litigation
Note:
Currently, none of the companies on the Global Oil & Gas Exit List are involved in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. However, the danger of oil and gas drilling in the region remains. This text gives an overview of the potential consequences of oil and gas activities in the Refuge.
approximate location
Keeping oil and gas companies away from the most sensitive areas of Alaska is a constant battle. For now, big oil and gas companies are leaving the plains and waters of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska alone. However, the State of Alaska is determined to turn large parts of the Arctic landscape into an oil and gas extraction site. The current peace is fragile for the animals and people living in the Refuge.
The Arctic Refuge comprises 76,890 km2 (19,5 million acres) of mountains, rivers, forest and coastal tundra.[1] It stretches from the Arctic Ocean to Interior Alaska, and west to the border of Canada. There are no roads in the refuge and very few people visit it. Nearly all human inhabitants are Indigenous Gwich’in and Iñupiat peoples who live in remote villages. They rely on the refuge’s resources, especially caribou (reindeer), to feed their people, make clothes and connect with the land on a spiritual level. The Gwich’in call the refuge’s coastal plain, Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit. This means “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins”.[2]
Many different animals are at home in the isolated refuge. Musk oxen, moose, grizzly and black bears, polar bears, caribou, wolves, and arctic foxes live in large numbers in the plains and mountains. Snow geese, golden eagles, tundra swans, yellow wagtails, Arctic terns and more than 150 other bird species come here each summer.[3] Millions of birds depend on the refuge’s coastal plain. The plain extends 1.5 million-acres between the Brooks Range and the Arctic Ocean. Every year, the birds nest here and raise their young.
The porcupine caribou herd numbers around 197,000 animals. Each summer, the animals travel thousands of kilometers from other areas of the refuge and from neighboring Canada to the coastal plain. On the plain, caribou cows give birth and nurse their calves.[4]
In recent years, oil and gas companies have taken advantage of weakened protections for the Arctic Refuge. After a 40-year ban on oil and gas exploration in this wild landscape, in 2017 the U.S. Senate passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This Act opened the way for oil and gas lease sales on the coastal plain. The law disregarded public opposition to drilling in the refuge, and ignored the human rights of Indigenous peoples.1459714599
In January 2021, the American government sold the first leases. This gave companies the right to search for oil in the Arctic Refuge. 2 private companies, Regenerate Alaska and Knik Arm Services, secured rights to explore in the region.[7] Regenerate Alaska is a subsidiary of Australia-based 88 Energy, while Knik Arm Services is a small Alaskan company. The Alaskan state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority was the only other buyer. However, it has no ability to develop the resources on its own.[8]
In 2022, Regenerate Alaska gave up its leases in the Refuge. Although only two companies now hold oil and gas rights there, the threat of future oil and gas development still looms. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority has sued the federal government because it ordered a temporary halt in oil and gas activity in the area. The agency still has plans to explore for oil.14601 If the lawsuit succeeds, other companies could also move into the Refuge. Another lease sale is due before the end of 2024. This second lease sale could bring new oil companies into the Arctic Refuge.
To see what the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would look like after oil and gas drilling has taken place, there is no need to go far. As soon as you leave the refuge, you see North America’s largest oil field, Prudhoe Bay. Prudhoe Bay oilfield stretches more than 160 km (100 mi) from west to east. A spiderweb of infrastructure, roads and pipelines criss-crosses the coastal tundra. Drilling sites, above-ground pipelines, docks, mines, roads, gravel pits, seawater treatment plants and powerlines scar the once-beautiful landscape.
In the Arctic Refuge, this kind of industrial development would break the animal habitat into disconnected pieces. This is especially bad for pregnant and calving caribou. Oil and gas development would make it harder, if not impossible, for caribou, snow geese and nesting birds to live on the coastal plain or cross it. Oil & gas industry leaders claim only 8.1 km2 of the 6,070 km2 coastal plains would be affected by oil production. However, this statement is misleading. In the refuge, small oil deposits are scattered across the coastal plain.[9] If the oil companies started drilling, these deposits would need to be connected by roads and pipelines.[10] Large beds of gravel would be built for drilling rigs, pipelines would spread across tundra and cross rivers. All of this infrastructure would disrupt and destroy wildlife habitat and travel routes. Additionally, seismic studies would threaten denning polar bears and could crush their dens. This would worsen the distress of the polar bears. They are already threatened by climate change and melting ice sheets. The polar bears use the sea ice to move and hunt seals. When it disappears, their hunting territory shrinks and it becomes more difficult for them to find food.
The oil & gas spree in Prudhoe Bay, right next to the refuge, has resulted in thousands of oil spills in the middle of the Arctic wilderness. Since 1977, oil companies have sent more than 16 billion barrels of oil from Prudhoe Bay down the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline.[11] Spills have occurred frequently and caused permanent damage. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation reported that Prudhoe Bay oilfields and the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline caused, on average, 500 oil and toxic chemical spills per year between 1996 and 2004.[12] In 2006, BP spilled an incredible 267,000 barrels of oil in a leak that went undetected for five days.[13] Workers searched for days to find the small hole causing the massive spill. All the time, the pipeline continued to leak oil onto the white snow in the middle of a caribou crossing. This threatened to poison thousands of animals.[14]
The oil and gas plans for the Arctic Refuge are facing opposition from many sides. To protect the Arctic land, water, wildlife, and people, Indigenous groups and environmental organizations launched a lawsuit that challenged the oil and gas leasing program.1460314605 Even the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination intervened. In a letter, it reminded the United States of its obligation to respect Indigenous peoples’ rights in the Arctic.14607 Following public pressure, every major bank in the United States– Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup – has publicly vowed to not finance new oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge.[15] Canada’s 5 largest banks and several other financial institutions have done the same.[16]14609This is a partial victory for the Arctic refuge. It means that the banks have promised not to directly finance oil and gas projects in the refuge. However, they might still fund infrastructure or provide general financing to oil and gas companies.
The animals, nature and people of Alaska’s Arctic have already paid a high price for society’s desire for oil. Over the past decades, Prudhoe Bay has become a landscape of scattered islands of nature separated by pipelines and extraction sites. This does not have to be the future for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Groups working on ANWR: Gwich’in Steering Committee, Arctic Refuge Defense Campaign
