Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 17:03:18 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul O'Brien Subject: Second Attempt re ANWR - Part 2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Now here's th rest of the story. Paul O'Brien Rockville, Mont. Co., MD pobrien776@aol.com 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 ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================