AP Environmental Science

The US Administration had planned on leasing wetlands near Teshekpuk Lake in Arctic Alaska for oil development. This, however, will not be happening in light of a federal judge’s decision which temporarily halted this plan.

These wetlands are home to migratory waterfowl from 3 continents during their featherless molting period, as well as to a herd of caribou.

If the US Bereau of Land Management (BLM) was able to complete the sale as expected on September 27, 1.4 billion barrels of oil would be up for grabs.

According to US District Court Judge James Singleton, the BLM did not consider what the oil development would do to the areas near the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The sale stipulations did, however, include that the

Both sides are able to dispute this preliminary ruling until September 15.

As of September 8, both sides were considering what they should do next in the very touchy issue.

In my opinion, this is a lot of oil that could be put to good use; however, we should wait until better ways of getting the oil are developed. Another solution is to develop a more fuel efficient car…that way not only would we be disturbing wildlife in the arctic, but we would polluting our air less.

http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=9E9A30B74C49D07D8150C8C83B1…

By: Yereth Rosen (September 8, 2006)