Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge Everyday we put tons of pollution into the air, water and ground. Our population is growing each day and in turn urbanization is expanding. Teddy Roosevelt, being an avid outdoorsmen, knew the importance of setting land aside for posterity sake and in doing do set a trend for later presidents. When Richard Nixon set land aside in Alaska, which became the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), he set it aside to be never tainted by industrialization. Today republicans and some democrats want to repeal the title of National Wildlife Refuge and drill there for oil. This could have adverse effects for wildlife and the Inuit natives that call the ANWR and surrounding area home. In this paper I will lay out my reasons for why we should not drill in the refuge. First of all, there is a drilling site in Alaska about 60 miles west of the ANWR. The big oil site has turned 1,000 square miles of tundra into a network of roads and pipelines (Sierra Club 1). It has turned it into what looks like an industrial park of a city. There are mounds of sewage sludge, scrap metal, garbage and waste sites that contain acids, lead, pesticides and diesel fuel. According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article there is an average of one, usually small, spill a day, but totally 1.5 million gallons since 1995 (1). The oil in the ANWR is not located in a concentrated spot but rather in 30 smaller deposits. This means there would have to be networks of roads and pipelines built, increasing the chance of a spill. If there is confusion of who spilled what, which happens 40% of the time, the clean up expense is put on the public (Sierra Club 1). The location of the ANWR would make clean up even harder because of the cold climate. Animal species that could be affected include polar bears, caribou, birds and fish. An interesting fact about this issue is that 95% of Alaskas North Slope is open for exploration and develop...
