Kurt Ullman wrote:
(Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:
That simply is not true though, as there is no part of
Alaska that is "virtually off-limits to any resource
harvesting". ANWR, for example, (and the parks on the
Canadian side of the border also) was established to
protect the resources required for several thousands of
people whose very way of life and existence relies upon
being able to harvest those resources.
Several thousands of people need several millions of acres and
can't spare a little land.
They've owned that land for thousands of years. What
right do you have to take it, or their resources, and
destroy their culture?
All told, the ANWR consists of 19 million acres. Congress has put 8
million acres into formal wilderness status and designated 9.5 million
acres as wildlife refuge. Those 17.5 million acres form a protected
enclave almost as large as the state of South Carolina.
Do you have a point?
The coastal plain of ANWR (the 1002 Area) is the single
such refuge in the Arctic. There is nothing else like
it in the world.
As part of the original legislation, Congress set aside the remaining
1.5 million acres of the coastal plain for ***potential exploration***
and development because of its oil and gas. (emphasis mine). Before any
exploration could occur, additional legislation had to be passed by
Congress. That happened in 1995, but President Clinton vetoed the bill.
Hence, we have wisely refrained from destroying it.
Note that Congress did *not* set it aside for
exploration, potential or otherwise. Congress said that
option should be studied because there was a potential.
It has been studied, and rather obviously it has been
consistently determined to *not* be a suitable option, which
is why exploration has not passed into law.
It is a little hard to make the case that areas that were initially
set-aside specifically for exploration could really have that much
impact.
That is an absurdly erroneous statement. As noted, it
was *not* set aside for exploration. And logically
there is no correlation between that and whether there
would or would not be an impact.
As we know positively from the horrendous impact of oil
production in the Prudhoe Bay industrial complex, there
is no question at all that there is in fact that impact.
Let's use our heads and not go off half cocked with
cock-a-mamie ideas based on false information.
You should try it sometime.
You did not even want to question the facts as I stated
them, but went of with false statements and illogical
philosophy.
Do you actually know *anything* about ANWR?
--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)