Editor's Note: The latest battle over Arctic drilling is scheduled to take place in the Senate on Thursday. Republicans have inserted the controversial measure into the budget to make it immune to filibuster and only require 51 votes to pass, rather than the usual 60. Senators John Kerry and Maria Cantwell are promoting an amendment that would strike drilling in the Arctic Refuge altogether.
-- kw/TO

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Cold Slows Alaska Oil Spill Cleanup    [

    Burst Oil Pipeline Causes "Catastrophe" in Alaska
    By Andrew Gumbel
    The Independent UK

    Tuesday 14 March 2006

    A burst pipeline in Alaska's North Slope has caused the Arctic region's worst oil spill, spreading more than 250,000 gallons of crude oil over an area used by caribou herds and prompting environmentalists again to question the Bush administration's drive for more oil exploration there.

    The leak was first spotted by a British Petroleum worker 11 days ago, and was reported to have been plugged a few days later. Initial hopes expressed by BP that the spill was limited to a few tens of thousands of gallons proved to be over-optimistic. Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation has steadily increased its estimate of the size of the spill, the latest estimate putting it at around 265,000 gallons.

    The leak, whose cause is unknown, occurred in a remote part of the most sparsely populated state in the United States, and it remains to be seen what damage, if any, it has done to ecosystems. It does, however, give grist to groups who have challenged Washington's assertion that oil can be prospected and shipped while leaving only the gentlest of "footprints" on the landscape.

    "This historic oil spill is a catastrophe for the environment," Natalie Brandon, of the Alaska Wilderness League, said in a statement. "Tone-deaf politicians in Congress should now stop trying to push for more drilling through sneaky manoeuvres ... The fact that the oil spill occurred in a caribou crossing area in Prudhoe Bay is a painful reminder of the reality of unchecked oil and gas development across Alaska's North Slope."

    The biggest battle has been over the fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, also on the North Slope, which the White House wants to open up. The initiative, championed from the moment the Bush administration took office in 2001, has been consistently blocked by Congress but is periodically revived.

    A second battle, meanwhile, is taking place in a previously untouched corner of the National Petroleum Reserve on the North Slope. The Bush administration has allowed oil companies to prospect for oil and gas in an area covering 389,000 acres. Environmental groups have responded with a federal lawsuit, filed last Friday, in which they contend that the Department of the Interior has violated the Endangered Species Act and other laws in an area noted for its flocks of migratory geese.

    It is not just environmentalists who oppose the administration's plans. Several prominent energy analysts, as well as Washington politicians, argue that the likely yield in unexplored areas of the North Slope is not large enough to justify the intrusion.

    Alaskan politicians and industry lobby groups are heavily in favour of expanding exploration as it would bring jobs and other benefits to the state economy. The Bush administration, meanwhile, argues that further domestic exploration is essential if the United States wants to decrease its dependence on oil and gas from the Middle East.

    Accidents and leaks have periodically occurred on the North Slope, and along the trans-Alaska pipeline that takes crude from Prudhoe Bay across two mountain ranges to the port of Valdez on the shores of the North Pacific. Saboteurs blew up a section of pipeline shortly after it opened in the 1970s, starting a major spillage. A hunter accidentally fired into the pipeline five years ago, causing $7m ( 3.6m) worth of damage.

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    Cold Slows Alaska Oil Spill Cleanup
    The Associated Press

    Tuesday 14 March 2006

    Prudhoe Bay, Alaska - Heavily bundled crews are braving merciless cold to continue cleaning up the largest oil spill ever on Alaska's North Slope.

    In recent days, the wind chill factor dipped to more than 70 degrees below zero at Prudhoe Bay, barely warming to 44 below on Monday as workers attacked the estimated spill of up to 267,000 gallons that seeped into almost two acres of snow-covered tundra.

    About 60,000 gallons of crude have been recovered since the leak from a ruptured transit line was discovered March 2 at a site operated by BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.

    "There's still a lot of work to be done under very trying conditions," said Dan Larson, a BP spokesman who visited the site.

    Crews used a vacuum truck to recover oil that pooled in some places and carried fresh snow to other spots to absorb the crude. After transferring the contaminated snow to a concrete pad, the mixture will be melted and separated.

    The crude will ultimately be treated and sold, according to BP officials. The goal is to collect at least 90 percent of it.

    "Hopefully, the tundra will recover," said Ed Meggert with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. "It's never going to be perfect."

    Officials emphasize the spill bears a small imprint, taking up a size smaller than two football fields in a vast industrial hub traversed by a network of pipelines, oil gathering stations and power plants. And despite the numbing conditions, the weather is actually helping recovery, turning oil thick as honey, so it doesn't spread as quickly as it would in warmer temperatures.

    The Prudhoe incident surpasses the 38,000 gallons spilled on the North Slope in 2001, but is much less than the 11 million gallons spilled in Prince William Sound when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989.

    The source of the spill was a quarter-inch hole apparently caused by corrosion inside the three-mile line that leads to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

    Workers on Saturday repaired the rupture, welding a metal sleeve on a six-foot section of the line. Crews are inspecting the line to determine if it can withstand resuming production.

    The plant, 650 miles north of Anchorage, usually processes 100,000 barrels of oil daily. Full production is not expected to resume for a week or more, said BP incident commander James Fausett.

    For now, a six-inch pipeline is being used for production of 5,000 barrels daily. BP also is looking at a plan to reroute the crude through another pipeline.

    Critics say the spill is the latest result of the oil industry's failure to properly maintain the North Slope's aging infrastructure. The North Slope is the region between the Brooks Range and the Arctic Ocean and contains most of Alaska's petroleum reserves.

    The pipeline is equipped with a leak detection system, but officials do not know when the crude began trickling out of the line. BP will investigate whether the system was working at the time, Fausett said.

    The extent of regulatory penalties BP faces is unknown. Officials with the state DEC said the company could be fined close to $2 million.