Anchorage Daily News

Nearly 40 years of oil exploration and production have transformed both the land and the people of the North Slope, and the impacts both good and bad are likely to last and expand, a scientific panel has concluded in a report issued Tuesday.

The 18-member National Research Council panel called its report the first ever comprehensive assessment of the cumulative effects of oil work on the Slope.

It outlines a growing network of roads, pipelines and gravel work pads on the tundra, major impacts on Native residents and wildlife, and future worries such as whether the industrial zone will ever be cleaned up once the oil and gas play out.

The report does not make recommendations on whether further drilling should be allowed in sensitive areas such as the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

"That is a policy decision. It's not a science decision," said Gordon Orians, a zoology professor emeritus at the University of Washington and chairman of the study panel.

Interests on both sides of Alaska's development debate seized on the report, some calling it biased against industry and others hailing it as a much needed summary of oil and gas sprawl across the Alaska Arctic.

U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, complained that three of the scientists were çactive opponentsç of oil development who once wrote former President Clinton urging permanent protection for ANWR.

Stevens, who secured $1.5 million in federal funding for the study in 1999, questioned why the panel was late in finishing its report, and he noted with suspicion that its release comes as Congress is again about to consider ANWR drilling. Yes, the Slope has seen changes like roads, but the scientists shortchanged the good that oil has done for the people of the North Slope, he said.

"To hear them talk, you'd think it'd be in the best interests of the country to just turn the clock back, put the Eskimos back in igloos," Stevens said.

Stan Senner, executive director of the conservation group Audubon Alaska, called the report an important roundup of industry impact.

"It confirms the fact that there are effects from past and present activities on the North Slope and that we can expect more impacts in the future, even with the new technologies that are out there," he said.

Spokesmen for oil companies operating in Alaska said they were studying the report Tuesday and noted that their own studies have indicated minimal impacts on the environment. They added that their industry is highly regulated.

The National Research Council is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter.

The 465-page North Slope report says the scientific panel studied an area larger than Minnesota extending from Canada west to the Chukchi Sea and from the Brooks Range north into the Arctic Ocean.

The report says the oil industry has built a çconspicuous networkç of 596 miles of roadways elevated above the fragile tundra on thick gravel berms, and 450 miles of pipeline clusters elevated on pilings. The pipelines join more than 5,817 acres of gravel work pads.

Seismic exploration has left many trails across the tundra that are visible from the air, and noisy offshore seismic work has repelled bowhead whales, forcing Inupiat to venture farther out to hunt them, the report says.

Oil wealth has spawned new government structures, such as the North Slope Borough, and created a cash economy that has improved the education, health care and housing conditions of Native people, who still strongly value animals and fish across the region for subsistence, the report says.

While it doesn't blame oil development directly, the report raises the question of whether oil has contributed to a rise in obesity, alcohol abuse, diabetes and other problems among Slope residents.

The report suggests residents might be in for a painful readjustment once the oil money runs out.

And Orians, in a news teleconference Tuesday, said the panel doubts oil companies will ever pony up the billions of dollars that will be needed to tear out the wells, pipelines, roads, production plants and gravel work pads after the oil and gas are gone.

What has happened in other oil-producing areas of the world is that major companies typically sell declining properties to smaller players who don't have as much financial muscle for cleanup, Orians said.

To date, almost no oil field facilities have been retired and cleaned up and only about 1 percent, or 100 acres, of gravel fill on the Slope has been restored, the report says.

The study did not evaluate whether the 14 billion barrels of oil produced so far from Prudhoe Bay and other North Slope oil fields was a worthwhile tradeoff for whatever impacts have occurred on the Slope.

Among other findings:

The scientists were surprised to find that oil spills on the Slope have not been large enough or frequent enough for their effects to have accumulated. They note, however, that cleanup capabilities are inadequate, particularly if a major spill occurred amid broken sea ice.

Some predatory species like foxes have thrived on oil field garbage, and they have driven down some populations of birds. As for other wildlife, oil has not resulted in large or long-term declines in caribou, but the spread of industry east into ANWR's narrower coastal plain could.

The industry has made çdramatic progressç in technology and techniques, such as building compact oil fields, to lessen damage to the tundra. But harm still occurs.

Orians said he hopes lawmakers will heed some of the report's recommendations, including a call for more research into such topics as the need for comprehensive planning and coordination of oil developments on the Slope and whether development is hurting the health of residents.

He noted that the panelists, seven from Alaska, were unanimous in the report's conclusions and that some have relied heavily on oil industry funding in their research careers. The group included biologists, geologists, an anthropologist, an economist, an engineer and an environmentalist.

Reporter Wesley Loy can be reached at wloy@adn.com or 907-257-4590. Reporter Liz Ruskin contributed to this story.

On the Web

To read the full National Research Council report on cumulative effects of the oil and gas industry on the North Slope, go to www.nas.edu.