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Hey Hey Ho Ho, Arctic Drilling Has Got to Go!By Rusty Zimmerman, Erich Ludwig, and Kate Warman
We would like to take this opportunity to let you all know about a very scary potential happening. Four oil companies, Exxon, Arco, British Petroleum (BP), and Chevron are planning to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling. The oil supply these companies plan to extract from the Refuge is estimated to provide only four to six months worth of oil for the Unites States. The Refuge is an amazingly beautiful, and has been described as the Serengeti of the USA due to its high diversity of species. The Refuge is the only birthing ground for the Porcupine Caribou herd, named after the Porcupine River near where they live. It is also home to the endangered musk oxen, 180 species of migratory birds, Dall sheep, polar bears, brown bears, black bears, and wolves. The Refuge is also the ancestral home of the Gwich’in people. This group of indigenous people rely on the caribou for their way of life. If the herd is disrupted, the lifestyle of these people will be forever changed.
Oil companies claim that they can drill in an environmentally friendly way; however, by looking at their past record of abuses, we realize that this is not the case. Whether you look at the number and size of oil spills, chemical waste, and drilling byproducts or you look at the impact of oil drilling on people and the environment, you see a continuous record of horror:
- Arco (1-800-322-2726)
is responsible (to the tune of $215 million) for the
largest Superfund site in the country, an area in
Montana. A Superfund site is a toxic spot designated for
immediate cleanup because it is so hazardous. Arco is
also solely responsible for three Superfund sites in
Prudhoe Bay, an area adjacent to the Refuge in northern
Alaska. 28 Arco employees are dead because of explosions
or accidents in Arco refineries and fields.
- British Petroleum
(BP) (1-800 UTELLBP) has an awful record despite their
much touted publicity of being a “green”
company. BP’s Endicott Field, the third largest
field in Prudhoe Bay, was an “environmentally
friendly” field, yet was fined $15 million for
injecting hazardous waste back into groundwater. BP is
responsible for the second largest oil spill in
California, a 400,000 gallon spill in Huntington Beach.
BP finances a private army in Columbia that has killed
six people “protecting” a pipeline through
indigenous lands. These actions have caused Human Rights
Watch to speak out against the army and BP.
- Chevron’s
(1-800-962-1223) record includes recent exploits such as
flying armed Nigerian military and police out to break up
a peaceful demonstration on an oil platform, which
resulted in the murder of two unarmed protesters. Chevron
has the dubious distinction of having 65 Clean Air Act
violations from one platform, the “Grace” off
the coast of California. Chevron, like Arco, is in the
Superfund race and is responsible for 49 Superfund
sites.
- Exxon
(1-800-344-4355) is responsible for the Valdez spill, the
largest spill in the nation’s history. After 10
years, the wildlife, economy, landscape, and sea has
still not recovered from this devastating incident. All
but one species, the bald eagle, have not been able to
recover from this spill to date, despite extensive
efforts. Exxon has had to pay reparations elsewhere, as
in Texas when they had to pay to clean up a community
after dumping over two billion gallons of chemical waste
water.
These examples are but a few of the things that can happen when oil is placed before those intangibles that we all value, like quality of life, wildlife, and a healthy environment. The mentality in the oil business of “time is money” leads to rushed actions in the field so that these types of accidents happen. This mindset is not compatible with one of the last great and truly wild places in the world. For at its root, oil drilling is not a low impact activity no matter how it is done. These four companies should not be drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. To help let them know, you can call the 1-800 numbers listed in the above paragraphs and tell them what you think.
Possible Solutions: Realistically, it is not feasible to ask the general driving public to suddenly stop driving in order to boycott these four oil companies. However, if we were to all look at our schedules and find a time in which we do not need to drive, to seek out an alternative to driving, to cut down on our collective use, then these four oil companies would not feel pressured to seek oil in such. Investing in alternative energy sources, even a 2% increase in car efficiency would save this Refuge from drilling.
OSPIRG is campaigning to inform the public of the Dirty Four’s actions and gathering signatures in protest of the drilling. Both our chapters here at L&C and the Portland State chapter have created near life-size caribou on which to collect signatures. If you have not yet signed our caribou Seymour, stop by the OSPIRG office, across from LCTV. In the coming weeks we will take Seymour and storm local gas stations letting them know that we are against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Please come by, or call us at extension 7128 if you want to join us in our protest against the Dirty Four.
Information in this piece is from an OSPIRG report entitled “The Dirty Four: The Case Against Letting BP, Arco, Exxon, and Chevron Drill in the Arctic Refuge.” The report is available for perusal at the OSPIRG office in Templeton.
