"Shell's Arctic Oil Exploration Stands to Open New Frontier" - Anchorage Daily News

[Blue_In_AK]

This is a quite long but informative article from this morning's Anchorage Daily News. To me, it's extremely disappointing that the president has gone along with this for what appears to be largely political reasons. I worry for the ecosystem and for the Alaska Natives whose lives depend upon the sea. It's not like people up there can just run off to Costco to fill their freezers.

http://www.adn.com/2012/05/26/2481334/shells-oil-exploration-stands.html

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The natural world holds a strong grip on the nearly 5,000 Eskimos of the North Slope, where the migration patterns of the bowhead whale dictate the rhythm of life. All other activity stops when the Inupiat load up their sealskin boats with gun-fired harpoons. Whale meat is carved at the beach and shared among the community along with mythical tales of whales giving up their freedom to nourish the people.

Bow-shaped whale skulls are displayed in front of public buildings, and baleens -- the bristly plates that filter krill in the whale's mouths -- in offices and homes.

In early April, Roy Nageak, 60, a whaling captain, got off his snowmobile and climbed a high ice ridge four miles offshore in search of a navigable hunting trail. "Those oil guys can think whatever they want, but we know how harsh this ocean is," he said. "They don't know what they are getting into."

But the Eskimos have also come to rely on the oil industry. Before onshore drilling began in the 1960s, many North Slope communities lacked running water and relied on kerosene lanterns for light. Residents chopped ice on nearby lakes and transported it by dog sled to preserve their food. There were no high schools or fire stations.

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Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/05/26/2481334/shells-oil-exploration-stands.html#storylink=cpy



A related article: http://www.adn.com/2012/05/25/2480389/appeals-court-backs-decision-giving.html

An appeals court has sided with the federal government in giving the go-ahead to Shell Oil Co. to move forward with drilling in the Alaska Arctic this year, according to a ruling issued Friday night.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected challenges by Alaska Native groups to Shell's exploration plan in the Beaufort Sea and, in a separate memorandum, also denied petitions challenging its plan for the Chukchi Sea.

The Native Village of Point Hope and the Inupiat Community of the North Slope asserted that the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management failed to properly consider the risks of drilling in the Arctic in approving Shell's plans. A number of environmental groups, including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, also challenged the federal approval.

"This case is the latest chapter in a long-running saga beginning back in April 2002," the three-judge panel wrote in the 27-page opinion. That's when the old Minerals Management Service established a schedule for a lease sale in the outer continental shelf of Alaska.

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Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/05/25/2480389/appeals-court-backs-decision-giving.html#storylink=cpy