Oil Brings Spotlight to America’s Northernmost Town | Newsweek Environment

For decades, tiny Barrow, Alaska, has been largely unknown and unnoticed. But with increasing global activity in the Arctic--especially from oil speculators--things are changing … fast.

8/21/08: NEWSWEEK's Tony Hopfinger looks at the impact of rising fuel prices on Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in the United States (Camera: Tony Hopfinger/Editor: Lee Wang)

By Tony Hopfinger | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Aug 21, 2008 | Updated: 12:50 p.m. ET Aug 21, 2008

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A weather-beaten milepost stands like a weather vane in the center of Barrow, Alaska, reminding all that you don't end up in America's northernmost town by accident. Arrows point in all directions: Paris--4,086 miles; Chicago--3,000 miles; Los Angeles--2,945 miles; Greenland--1,520 miles; and the North Pole--just 1,311 miles from the shores of Barrow. Reachable only by airplane or ship, this remote town of 4,000, where the Inupiats still hunt whales, walrus and seals, is quickly becoming a U.S. stronghold in what's being called the last frontier on earth.

The warming Arctic Ocean is opening up to shipping, tourism and oil exploration, with the eight countries bordering its fringes all vying to claim their bounty in the natural resource-rich territory. Barrow, which the Eskimos call Ukpeagvik (place where owls are hunted), has a bird's eye view on it all. "It's a whole new world up here," says Edward Itta, an Eskimo whaling captain and the mayor of the ++North Slope Borough++
<< http://www.north-slope.org/>>, which encompasses Barrow and seven other settlements across northern Alaska.

This year is shaping up to be one of the busiest ever in the Alaskan Arctic, with dignitaries visiting the far north, wildcatters searching for crude, and government researchers mapping the seafloor to determine how much of the ocean the United States might claim as its own. The attention comes as Washington revises its Arctic policy for the first time since 1994, and as the growing energy crisis becomes a bigger subject for the presidential campaign.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently made his first trip to the Arctic, quietly stopping in Barrow with U.S. Coast Guard Commander Thad Allen to assess the agency's future mission up north. The day before Chertoff arrived, three ships, contracted by Imperial Oil Ltd., were briefly trapped in sea ice 60 miles from Barrow, while on their way to hunt for crude off the Canadian coastline. Meantime, a Chinese research vessel was wandering off the northwest coast of Alaska.

Back in Barrow, townspeople wondered whether a boatload of Germans was going to show up for the second straight year--an odd Arctic occurrence, as telling of the climatic changes happening to their surroundings as reports of polar bears drowning off their shores. Last summer, German tourists showed up in Barrow unannounced. They'd come aboard a cruise ship that had managed to sail from Europe via the Northwest Passage--that fabled passageway slicing across the top of Canada, which until recently, was almost always ice choked in summertime.

The increasing ship traffic hasn't been lost on the Coast Guard. The agency is carrying out training exercises in Barrow this summer, realizing that it may need a permanent summer presence at the top of the world, to respond to potential oil spills, shipping accidents and distress calls. "Thirteen percent of the world's untapped oil is up there," says Captain Mike Inman, chief of response for the Coast Guard's 17th District in Alaska. "That alone will drive what the Coast Guard's mission is in Barrow in the years to come."

More pressing though, is how the United States will keep pace in what is becoming an all-out race to claim vast swaths of the Arctic. Last summer, a Russian submarine++ planted a flag on the sea floor at the North Pole++ <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601369.html>>. The expedition's leader, Artur Chilingarov, proudly proclaimed afterwards, "The Arctic is ours."

"We have explorers in our history like Daniel Boone. The Russians have guys like Chilingarov, who for 40 years has been one of the leading Arctic explorers in the world," says Mead Treadwell, chairman of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. "We've ignored the Arctic for years, sometimes at our peril."

Does the Democratic leadership under Barack Obama expect current electric power plants to provide all the huge electricity requirements to recharge and power all the new hybrid and electric cars will be coming on line. There will have to be new power plants built and these must be nuclear plants. If Democrats think that wind or solar will recharge all of these new cars, they have to be joking because the wind does not blow all the time. The new sources of additional electricity to charge up all these cars will have to come from nuclear energy.

Why is there such an ingrained irrational paranoia about nuclear energy and waste disposal among some Americans especially the Democratic leadership under the direction of Barack Obama. Importantly also why is it somehow okay for hundreds of thousands of Navy sailors to have served for nearly thirty-five years aboard nuclear power American aircraft carriers and nuclear powered submarines and air force personnel to handle nuclear bombs but Democratic leadership under Barack Obama will not consider to even remotely assume any risks involved with nuclear power. Is it okay for our servicemen to be exposed to alleged risks but not the Democratic leadership who oppose nuclear power. This paranoia is particular evident with the Democrats acceptance of risks that are associated with other aspects of modern American living. Forty thousand people die every year in the United States in auto accidents but there is no outcry to ban all automobiles in the United States. Bridges have collapsed recently in Minnesota and tunnels ceilings in Boston have fallen but there is no consensus on eliminating bridges or tunnels. There have been airplane crashes that have also involved injuries on the ground but there is no outcry to ban air travel. There have been repeated rail and ship accidents but no outcry to ban railroads or ship travel. The irrational fear involving nuclear power and waste disposal has no justification. American people undergo multiple medical and dental xrays and CT scans yearly and have no fear. TSA airport screeners and medical staff work daily around xray equipment, fluoroscopes, and CT machines and do not experience adverse health consequences as a result of their work exposure. There were no documented adverse health events associated with the Three Mile Island release of minor radiation in the 1970s and no payments for health losses were ever made involving lawsuits related to that accident. The containment vessel held at Three Mile Island. In light of most Americans acceptance of risks associated with automobiles, trains, planes, and ships, the fear on the part of the Democratic leadership of nuclear power can not be viewed as rational. John McCain's proposals to build 45 new nuclear power plants along with his other energy proposals on conservation and renewable energy will help America achieve relative energy independence in the near term and long term.

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Posted By: tedd @ 08/25/2008 10:28:40 PM

we're big fans of Earth Day. It is a wonderful scenic country area and home to Dinosaur World and a state park. There are dinosaur tracks from 100 million years ago along the riverbed that can be seen some say are heading in the direction of New York City

Tedd

<a href=http://www.drugtreatments.com/south-carolina>South Carolina Drug Treatment</a>
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Posted By: tedd @ 08/25/2008 10:24:26 PM

we're big fans of Earth Day. It is a wonderful scenic country area and home to Dinosaur World and a state park. There are dinosaur tracks from 100 million years ago along the riverbed that can be seen some say are heading in the direction of New York City

Tedd

<a href=???http://www.drugtreatments.com/south-carolina???rel=???dofollow???>South Carolina Drug Treatment</a>

tedd
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Posted By: mccainsupporter @ 08/25/2008 9:24:25 PM

Does the Democratic leadership under Barack Obama expect current electric power plants to provide all the huge electricity requirements to recharge and power all the new hybrid and electric cars will be coming on line. There will have to be new power plants built and these must be nuclear plants. If Democrats think that wind or solar will recharge all of these new cars, they have to be joking because the wind does not blow all the time. The new sources of additional electricity to charge up all these cars will have to come from nuclear energy.

Why is there such an ingrained irrational paranoia about nuclear energy and waste disposal among some Americans especially the Democratic leadership under the direction of Barack Obama. Importantly also why is it somehow okay for hundreds of thousands of Navy sailors to have served for nearly thirty-five years aboard nuclear power American aircraft carriers and nuclear powered submarines and air force personnel to handle nuclear bombs but Democratic leadership under Barack Obama will not consider to even remotely assume any risks involved with nuclear power. Is it okay for our servicemen to be exposed to alleged risks but not the Democratic leadership who oppose nuclear power. This paranoia is particular evident with the Democrats acceptance of risks that are associated with other aspects of modern American living. Forty thousand people die every year in the United States in auto accidents but there is no outcry to ban all automobiles in the United States. Bridges have collapsed recently in Minnesota and tunnels ceilings in Boston have fallen but there is no consensus on eliminating bridges or tunnels. There have been airplane crashes that have also involved injuries on the ground but there is no outcry to ban air travel. There have been repeated rail and ship accidents but no outcry to ban railroads or ship travel. The irrational fear involving nuclear power and waste disposal has no justification. American people undergo multiple medical and dental xrays and CT scans yearly and have no fear. TSA airport screeners and medical staff work daily around xray equipment, fluoroscopes, and CT machines and do not experience adverse health consequences as a result of their work exposure. There were no documented adverse health events associated with the Three Mile Island release of minor radiation in the 1970s and no payments for health losses were ever made involving lawsuits related to that accident. The containment vessel held at Three Mile Island. In light of most Americans acceptance of risks associated with automobiles, trains, planes, and ships, the fear on the part of the Democratic leadership of nuclear power can not be viewed as rational. John McCain's proposals to build 45 new nuclear power plants along with his other energy proposals on conservation and renewable energy will help America achieve relative energy independence in the near term and long term.