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Teshekpuk Lake Threatened

Oil Development is About to Decimate The Teshekpuk Lake Region in Northern Alaska.

Sep 10, 2006

The Sensitive Wilderness Around Teshekpuk Lake, Alaska, is About to be Opened to Alaska oil Exploration and Development. Birds, Wildlife, and Native People Will Suffer.

If you take the road north from Fairbanks, Alaska to Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean, you will pass between the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and another sensitive wilderness area called the Teshekpuk Lake region. Teshekpuk Lake lies within the boundaries of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

Teshekpuk Lake is a large body of water surrounded by extensive wetlands made up of deep freshwater lakes, coastal inlets, meadowlands, and river deltas. The area is unique because the wetlands provide both an abundance of food and a large area relatively safe from predators - an ideal place for the molting geese that congregate there in vast numbers at the end of the breeding season.

The Pik Dunes, to the south of Teshekpuk Lake, form a habitat of freshwater lakes and active dunes that are important to migrating caribou, while the region to the north is the molting ground for many thousands of geese (Pacific Black Brant, Lesser Snow Geese, Canada Geese, White-fronted Geese and others) and a nesting area for countless other birds. Bird species that depend on the region include Snowy Owls, Short-eared Owls, Stellar's Eider, and at least two threatened species: the Yellow-billed Loon and the Spectacled Eider.

The Teshekpuk Lake region has been a vital hunting and fishing area for the native people of Alaska for generations: thus, they will also be adversely impacted if oil development goes ahead in the region.

While the Teshekpuk lake region holds great potential for oil resources, successive US governments have recognized its importance for wildlife and native people, and the area has been largely protected from the ravages of oil drilling in Alaska up until now. However, the restrictions against oil development have been removed and the US Bureau of Land Management is moving ahead with a lease sale that will allow the oil industry to move in.

The future of Teshekpuk Lake looks grim:

Oil leasing will create a web of roads, pipelines, drilling pads, and other oil infrastructure that will carve up the fragile wetlands north to Teshekpuk Lake, disrupting both the natural ecology and the varied populations of animals and plants.
The North Slope of Alaska already suffers over 500 oil spills annually as a result of oil exploration and development. (http://www.audubon.org)
Nearly two million gallons of toxic petroleum products were spilled on the North Slope between 1996 and 2004. (http://www.audubon.org)
Estimates suggest there may be two billion barrels of oil in the Teshekpuk Lake region (seattletimes.nwsource.com) - enough to supply the US economy for all of three months(www.nationmaster.com).

It's not too late to save Teshekpuk Lake. Read my blog entry The National Audubon Society is Trying to Save Teshekpuk Lake.

The copyright of the article Teshekpuk Lake Threatened in Birds is owned by Rosemary Drisdelle. Permission to republish Teshekpuk Lake Threatened in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Comments

Sep 13, 2006 3:27 AM

Rosemary Drisdelle :

You have to wonder whether it's really worth destroying a highly sensitive and important wilderness area like Teshekpuk Lake for just a few months worth of oil. The cynic would suggest that this is more about increasing the personal wealth of certain oil barons than supplying necessary energy.

Sep 13, 2006 12:59 PM

Robert Dailey :

I agree, Rosemary. In addition to seeing what the oil industry can do to the environment, I have seen how <i>environmentally conscious</i> the BLM can be.
Much of the land in the western U.S. is controlled by BLM. BLM leases it out to graze livestock. This process has led to overgrazing, stream pollution and irrevocable erosion.
I've also seen the chemical leaching and landslides into pristine streams caused by strip mining on property managed by BLM.

Sep 15, 2006 11:37 AM

Rosemary Drisdelle :

That's an interesting comment Bob. I recently read an article about wild stallions in the western US. It was very critical of both the focus on preserving an introduced animal at the cost of native species, and the expensive, ecologically damaging way the BLM goes about the task.

That article was an eye-opener for me. It was in the Sept/Oct 2006 issue of Audubon.

Rosemary

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