ANWR… what is it?

Most people honestly do not care what or where it is other then to say “DRILL IT”! Others who happen to like to tightly lock arms around those ghostly trees of the North, scream about the rights of Caribou, Bear and the Native Americans who subsist in that area.

ANWR started under Eisenhower in 1952, which is very odd since Alaska was only a Territory at that time.  By the time the paperwork and wordage for the paperwork, the Secretary of the Interior had signed it in 1960 (only 2 years after statehood) in which began the establishment of what we now call the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But it was actually Johnson who started the seal of defeat for the area.

What is more then amazing when Nixon signed the Arctic Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which gave way to 18 million acres for wilderness studies as well as oil and gas assessment for the area. Not much has been explored for assessment concerning oil and gas in the area except by Kaktovik, a small village at the top of ANWR.  The people of Kaktovik or their corporation, Kaktovik Inupiat Corp (KIC), has quite a bit of surface rights yet none for subsurface that I can find.  Nixon gave the surface rights to these people in 1971. 

ANWR has grown three times since becoming a Refuge. In 1980 approximately 18 million acres was added. One million acres in 1983 due to a State of Alaska mistake.  And then 325,000 in 1988. It was originally 8.9 million acres and is now 28,225,000 acres. 

But what is so special about ANWR that we need to open it? Maybe the fact there are geological studies pertaining to the possible HUGE oil and gas finds in the Coastal plains of ANWR.  We will ever know the actual estimate of how much oil there is or could possibly be?  Not if Congress won’t let us. You can apply for a geological permit to explore ANWR, but where are you allowed to explore? The USGS and DOI, have been the only ones allowed to explore, yet they are both “owned” by the Government.  How credible is their information?

The only way to find out is let private industry in and explore.  Exploration isn’t just drilling, it is seismic, aerial as well as soil testing.  As drilling is usually the best policy for exploration, seismic can be just as good in many avenues due to 3D imaging software out now.

So what is it we can do? Contact our Congressmen and tell them you want private industry to explore the regions of ANWR.  Lets see if the USGS and DOI geologists were telling the truth or if they fabricated the numbers higher or lower then what their reports were.  It is up to the American Public to open up it’s “own” National Park.