National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska
Encyclopedia
Alaska North Slope
The Alaska North Slope is the region of the U.S. state of Alaska located on the northern slope of the Brooks Range along the coast of two marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Chukchi Sea being on the western side of Point Barrow, and the Beaufort Sea on the eastern.The region contains the...
owned by the United States federal government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
and managed by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...
(BLM). It lies to the west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Alaska, United States. It consists of in the Alaska North Slope region. It is the largest National Wildlife Refuge in the country, slightly larger than the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge...
, which as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal government agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats...
-managed National Wildlife Refuge
National Wildlife Refuge
National Wildlife Refuge is a designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the world's premiere system of public lands and waters set aside to conserve America's fish, wildlife and plants...
is also federal land
Federal lands
Federal lands are lands in the United States for which ownership is claimed by the U.S. federal government.-Primary federal land holders:*Bureau of Land Management*United States Forest Service*United States Fish and Wildlife Service*National Park Service...
on the North Slope. At a size of 23.5 million acres (95,000 km²), the NPR-A has been described as "the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States" (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is 19 million acres (77,000 km²)) and includes a point 120 miles (193.1 km) from the nearest village or driveable road. Inupiat Eskimos live in several villages around its perimeter, the largest of which is Barrow
Barrow, Alaska
Barrow is the largest city of the North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is one of the northernmost cities in the world and is the northernmost city in the United States of America, with nearby Point Barrow being the nation's northernmost point. Barrow's population was 4,212 at the...
, the seat of the North Slope Borough
North Slope Borough, Alaska
-National protected areas:* Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge ** Cape Lisburne** Cape Thompson* Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ** Mollie Beattie Wilderness * Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve...
.
Oil and gas reserves
An assessment by the United States Geological Survey (USGS)United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology,...
in 2010 estimated that the amount of oil yet to be discovered in the NPRA is only one-tenth of what was believed to be there in the previous assessment, completed in 2002.
The new USGS estimate now says the NPRA contained approximately "896 million barrels of conventional, undiscovered oil". The reason for the decrease is because of new exploratory drilling, which showed that many areas that were believed to hold oil actually hold natural gas.
The estimates of the amount of undiscovered natural gas in the region also fell, from "61 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, conventional, non-associated gas" in the 2002 estimate, to 53 cubic foot (1.500792891E-08 km³) in the 2010 estimate.
History
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
in 1923 as Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 4 during a time when the United States was converting its Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
to run on oil
Oil
An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....
rather than coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
. In 1976 the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act renamed the reserve the "National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska" and transferred it from the Navy to the Department of the Interior. The 1980 Interior Department Appropriations Act directed the Bureau of Land Management
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...
(BLM) within the Department of Interior to conduct oil and gas leasing. Nevertheless, the area was left essentially as a wilderness until the late 1990s.
BLM divided the reserve into three planning areas: the Northeast with 4600000 acres (18,615.6 km²) of public land, the Northwest with 8800000 acres (35,612.4 km²) of public land, and the South with 9200000 acres (37,231.1 km²) of public land. In 1998, after BLM had gone through a planning process for the Northeast area, the Secretary of Interior signed a Record of Decision (ROD), which opened 87 percent of this area to oil and gas leasing. BLM has since leased almost 1500000 acres (6,070.3 km²) in the Northeast. A ROD for the Northwest area was signed in 2004. In this area 2300000 acres (9,307.8 km²) have been leased. BLM began the planning process for the South in 2005, but discontinued it in the summer of 2007 because residents were concerned that extraction of oil and gas would harm resources needed for subsistence.
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
administration decided to eliminate the reservations for the most sensitive areas. This decision was challenged by lawsuits. On September 7, 2006, the United States District Court for the District of Alaska
United States District Court for the District of Alaska
The United States District Court for the District of Alaska is the Federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Alaska. Offices are located in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Nome...
in Anchorage
Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...
blocked the sale of leases on 600,000 acres (2400 km²) of wetland around the Teshekpuk Lake area. In response to the court, BLM released a Supplemental Integrated Activity Plan/Environmental Impact Statement. The agency is expected to issue a final supplemental statement in the spring of 2008 and may hold a lease sale for the Teshekpuk area in the fall of 2008.
The conservation movement as a whole has put less effort into preserving the NPRA than it has into protecting the smaller Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to its east. A citizens' proposal to conserve the entire NPRA as a National Pleistocene Refuge, with no future oil and gas leasing, has been put forward. Other conservation initiatives have concentrated on specific areas within the NPRA that are particularly rich in wildlife such as the Teshekpuk area and the wetlands along the Ikpikpuk River in the Northwest. As of early 2008, these campaigns have not achieved any permanent successes, despite the fact that a committee of the National Research Council in 2003 published a report that supports environmental claims that oil and gas extraction in the reserve may cause permanent and irreversible environmental damage.
Ecological importance
The NPRA is an ecologicallyEcology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
important area. It contains Teshekpuk Lake
Teshekpuk Lake
Teshekpuk Lake is a -wide lake on the Arctic coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, South of Pitt Point, East of Harrison Bay, East of Point Barrow.- Etymology :...
, an important nesting
Nesting
Nesting refers to the process of efficiently manufacturing parts from flat raw material.Companies manufacturing parts from flat raw material such as sheet metal use a variety of technologies to perform this task. The sheet metal nesting for flat sheets and nesting for coils are different algorithms...
ground for many species of migratory bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
, including shorebirds and waterfowl. The NPRA also supports more than half-a million caribou of the Western Arctic and Teshekpuk Caribou Herds. The Western Arctic Herd calves in the Utukok, Kokolik and Colville uplands, while the Teshekpuk Herd calves in the areas surrounding Teshekpuk Lake. The highest concentration of grizzly bears in Alaska's Arctic, as well as wolverines, and wolves prey on the abundant caribou. NPRA contains the headwaters and much of the Colville River
Colville River (Alaska)
The Colville River is a major river of the Arctic Ocean coast of Alaska in the United States, approximately 350 mi long. One of the northernmost major rivers in the North America, it drains a remote area of tundra on the north side of the Brooks Range entirely above the Arctic Circle...
, Alaska's largest river north of the Arctic Circle
Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
. The region's geology is unique in Alaska and most of the area was never glaciated.
See also
- Arctic Refuge drilling controversyArctic Refuge drilling controversyThe question of whether to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve has been an ongoing political controversy in the United States since 1997...
- Natural resources of the ArcticNatural resources of the ArcticNatural resources of the Arctic are the mineral and animal resources within the Arctic region that provide or have potential to provide utility or economic benefit to humans...
- Arctic policy of the United StatesArctic policy of the United StatesThe Arctic Policy of the United States refers to the foreign policy of the United States in regards to the Arctic region. In addition, the United States' domestic policy toward Alaska is part of its Arctic policy....