Not too late! The House has voted; the Senate has not, and won't be back in
session till around Labor Day.

Diane Bagues
Milwaukie, Oregon
dbagues at earthlink.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Paulson" <dpaulson at ups.edu>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2001 1:09 PM
Subject: [LABIRD-L] one oilman's view of ANWR (fwd)


> I know it's too late for the vote, but perhaps there are still ways to
stop
> the drilling. Here is a compelling report from one person.
>
> >---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 11:16:36 -0500
> >From: Van Remsen <najames at unix1.sncc.lsu.edu>
> >Reply-To: Bulletin Board for Dissemination of Information on Louisiana
> > Birds <LABIRD-L at listserv.lsu.edu>
> >To: LABIRD-L at listserv.lsu.edu
> >Subject: [LABIRD-L] one oilman's view of ANWR
> >
> >LABIRD: FYI below; definitely worth a skim if you're interested in the
> >fate of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (where some of our Louisiana
> >wintering birds presumably breed):
> >
> >---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 00:31:17 EDT
> >From: GreatGrayO at aol.com
> >Subject- ANWR
> >
> >
> >I just got this narrative written by Mark Herndon. Mark is an oilman from
> >Oklahoma who has worked with us for many years on our storm intercept
> >projects as a volunteer. He just spent a month trekking ANWR... read what
> >he has to say. Pass it on to your friends if you are so inclined.
> >
> >Erik Rasmussen
> >Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies
> >NSSL/OU
> >
> >Hi everyone,
> >
> >For those of you who don't know, I returned yesterday from a month alone
> >in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in far northeastern Alaska. I'm
> >really beat. I lost 25 lbs and basically feel like I have been beaten up.
> >It was a really tough trip.
> >
> >I want to share a little bit about the place with you while it is still
> >fresh in my mind; things that I feel are very important. I want to grab
> >you by the lapels and tell you a few things that are true, because I have
> >seen them.
> >
> >ANWR is probably the biggest chunk of absolute wilderness left in this
> >country. I've also been in part of Gates of the Arctic National Park and
> >Noatak National Preserve, two other large protected areas in the Brooks
> >Range. ANWR is huge compared to those places; it's a place where you
could
> >walk your whole life and never see it all. Contrary to what you may have
> >heard about the place in the media, it is not a vast wasteland. It is
like
> >heaven on earth, and hasn't been touched by man. There is not a single
> >building, not a single trail, in an area that I've heard is about
> >comparable to South Carolina. It's 19 million acres and there ain't no
> >visitor center.
> >
> >Very few people go there. It is difficult and committing to get there.
> >Since I have been there, and with the current political situation about
> >ANWR's coastal plain, I emphatically want to tell you what it is like.
And
> >feel free to tell your friends.
> >
> >First, I paddled the Canning River, on the west side of the Refuge. I
> >started up high in the glaciated Brooks Range and hiked for a few days.
> >Craggy mountains and a two day snowstorm on the fourth of July. It looks
> >wilder than the wildest part of Colorado without the trees. That part of
> >the refuge is far north of treeline.
> >
> >As I floated down I saw gyrfalcons, peregrines and golden eagles. I saw
> >musk ox and had a long, close encounter with a grizzly bear. Everywhere
> >were tracks of caribou, muskox, grizzly, wolf and wolverine.
> >
> >I hiked up side valleys that were miles wide and absolutely flat tundra
> >covered with lupines and arctic poppies. A close examination of the
tundra
> >reveals hundreds of tiny flowers and lichens. Everywhere were old caribou
> >antlers and skulls poking up through the tundra. Wolf killed caribou
> >skeletons also dot the tundra, often skulls with huge antlers attached. I
> >saw more muskox, and managed to walk pretty close to some of them, before
> >they got a little agitated.
> >
> >As I floated out of the mountains to the coastal plain I began to see
> >caribou in earnest. More than you could ever count. It was like being in
a
> >herd in Africa. This is also where I came out of the wilderness part of
> >the refuge and the river became the boundary between state land on the
> >left (where oil exploration goes on) and ANWR on the right bank. On the
> >state land I began to see many abandoned fuel drums and huge tracks on
the
> >tundra where cat trains shoot seismic in the winter. The tracks don't go
> >away any time soon. I saw abandoned drums on the tundra constantly after
a
> >while over on the state land.
> >
> >As I crossed the coastal plain I saw many smaller caribou herds and began
> >to see lots of birds; geese, ducks, tundra swans, and many strange types
> >of birds that I have no idea what they were, probably migrating up from
> >Hawaii or Chile to nest.
> >
> >All this time, I saw more and more garbage on the left bank. Most of the
> >animals were on the right bank. In this day and age, I would think that
> >BP-Amoco, Exxon, and Phillips would go clean all that crap up.
> >
> >I made my way to the delta of the river where it empties into the
Beaufort
> >Sea, and in a 2:00am lull in the wind paddled a roundabout 10 miles
across
> >the four mile lagoon to an island that is about 6 miles long. There were
> >many small icebergs about thirty feet across. I saw old sod huts that the
> >eskimos used to live in on the island, and found that the entire north
> >side of the island was still fast against the sea ice which continues to
> >somewhere in Russia, I guess. I walked out on it for a ways, and it is
> >really rough. One day I watched ringed seals (polar bears staple food)
> >sunning on the ice through binoculars. I saw a huge set of polar bear
> >tracks around the lagoon side of the island, but they were pretty old.
The
> >island was just a few miles outside of the ANWR boundary, and Exxon had
> >drilled a dry hole on it in the past two years. It was one of the
> >filthiest locations I have ever seen in my 15 years working in the oil
> >industry. I was really surprised, because Exxon drillsites in the lower
48
> >are usually the cleanest of them all. I was not impressed with what I saw
> >of the oil industry in Alaska.
> >
> >Then my bush plane landed on a sandspit and took me to the headwaters of
> >the Jago river, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places
> >on earth. I spent ten days in this valley, hiking up to the glaciated
> >peaks at it's headwaters. Part of the Porcupine caribou herd had gone
> >south up the valley a couple of days before my arrival and there were
> >millions of tracks, all heading south. Interspersed were the occasional
> >wolf or grizzly track. I saw a few stray cow caribou, but the show had
> >already moved south for the winter.
> >
> >On the Jago, I was trapped for two days waiting for a rain swollen river
> >to come down so I could wade across. I fell in the same river on the way
> >up, and wet gear up there is serious trouble because of the cold. The
only
> >way to describe this valley is to take the prettiest valley in Montana or
> >Idaho and double it. It just took your breath away. It was so different
> >that it may as well have been the moon. One night while I slept a grizzly
> >walked by my tent. There was a set of fresh tracks there that weren't
> >there the night before. He paid me no mind.
> >
> >Anyway, I was picked up on a gravel bar on the lower river and flown out
> >to Kaktovik, on the coast. I heard there were nine white people in
> >Kaktovik, but the Inupiat eskimos who live there were very nice people.
> >You'd see someone cleaning a freshly killed bearded seal in the front
yard
> >of their house. A local hunter (they basically all hunt and whale) heard
> >I'd been on the Canning and sought me out for skinny on where the caribou
> >still were. From there, I made all of the flights home.
> >
> >Before I went to see ANWR for myself I already had some conceptions.
After
> >last year in Alaska I thought that modern oil exploration could be done
> >responsibly. Certainly most Alaskans were for it. They got $1600 each
last
> >year from the north slope oil money.
> >
> >After seeing ANWR....seeing that coastal plain myself, I realized that
> >there are a lot of lies being told about this place. It is not a vast
> >wasteland. It is achingly beautiful, and if you value wild places, the
> >refuge could be considered a sanctuary or a cathedral. To me, it was an
> >intense experience far beyond what I expected. I have been going to wild
> >places most of my life, but I have never been to a place like this. Not
> >even close in the lower 48.
> >
> >There are a few places that are just not appropriate for large scale oil
> >exploration. This place is far more fantastic than Yellowstone or Grand
> >Teton, but it is far away and few care.
> >
> >If we put a bunch of drill pads on that coastal plain we will be making a
> >terrible mistake. Our country will never again be energy independent
> >anyway. Those numbers don't lie. Drilling in ANWR will only help about 4
> >major oil companies and the state of Alaska (which is completely addicted
> >to the oil tit). The numbers don't lie. It will only make a few percent
> >difference to the nation.
> >
> >The first morning back, I read in the paper that the House approved
> >drilling in ANWR. I felt like crying. That coastal plain is very narrow,
> >and the most environmentally sensitive exploration would put a giant blot
> >on it.
> >
> >Most of you will never meet anyone else in your life who has actually
been
> >to ANWR. Fewer still who have crossed the coastal plain. I emphatically
> >urge you to listen to what I am saying and take it into account as you
> >form your own opinions. The vote to open ANWR still has to make it
through
> >the senate, and those of you in Oklahoma are wasting paper by writing to
> >our senators; to those of you in other states, maybe you can help.
> >
> >And remember. I AM in the oil industry. I'm all for drilling in many,
many
> >places. Not here. The price is way too high.
> >
> >I can't emphasize enough how special this place is. I don't believe the
> >promise that they will only disturb 2000 acres. When they get through
> >shooting seismic in that place it will look like a chessboard from the
> >air. It's kind of like a football field. 22 players standing on their
feet
> >probably occupy far less than 100 square feet of that football field. But
> >they sure do make an impression. The coastal plain is the living part of
> >the refuge. The rest is very mountainous and almost sterile by
comparison.
> >To go stomping on the coastal plain with a series of industrial sights is
> >just too much.
> >
> >I don't want to have to say that I saw ANWR way back BEFORE it got all
> >messed up.
> >
> >Thanks for listening (for those of you who made it through this).
> >
> >Mark Herndon
>
> Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-879-3798
> Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-879-3352
> University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
> Tacoma, WA 98416
> http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html
>
>
>