mjh’s blog — we know 21st-century technology guarantees the land’s protection
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski:
But if Arctic oil development was going to harm the environment or wildlife, then I would agree opening it would not be worth the cost. But the vast majority of Alaskans, including Alaska’s Eskimos who know it best, support ANWR’s development because we know 21st-century technology guarantees the land’s protection.
I hope Murkowski’s words haunt her forever. mjh
Alaska spill cleanup continues By RACHEL D’ORO, The Associated Press
“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.
Cold Slows Alaska Oil Spill Cleanup By RACHEL D‘ORO
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.