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OCR for page 12
1
Introduction
In 1968, large oil reserves were discovered along the
coast of Alaska's North Slope. The oil field in Prudhoe Bay
(Figure 1-1) is now the largest in North America. It is esti-
mated that approximately 23 billion bbl (966 billion gal,3.7
trillion liters [L]) of oil originally was in the ground. Produc-
tion began in 1977. Since that initial discovery, other large
fields have augmented the production from Prudhoe Bay. By
the end of 2002, about 14 billion bbl (588 billion gal, 2.2
trillion L) of crude oil had been produced. North Slope oil
has averaged about 20% of U.S. domestic production since
1977, and it currently provides about 15% of the annual do-
mestic production of approximately 3.3 billion bbl and 7%
of the annual domestic consumption of approximately 7 bil-
lion bbl. Reliable estimates of technically recoverable re-
serves for the North Slope and its adjacent offshore areas are
not currently available. There also are huge reserves of coal
and natural gas in the region, and if production of those re-
sources were to become economically feasible, the strategic
and economic importance of the hydrocarbon energy re-
sources of the region would be even greater.
The term North Slope refers to the area from the crest of
the Brooks Range to the Arctic coast, from the Canadian
border to Point Hope. Although the area is more correctly
called the Arctic Slope, the Committee on Cumulative Envi-
:
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~ ~ 3
::~ :~ : ::: I:-:- :::
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: ~( ,, i :
: :::::: :::s :;:~-
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it,
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FIGURE 1-1 The Alaska North Slope region. The dashed line is the southern boundary of the drainage basin. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline
is close to the Dalton Highway. SOURCE: Data from Alaska Geobotany Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2002.
12
OCR for page 13
INTRODUCTION
ronmental Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska's
North Slope has elected to follow convention and use North
Slope in this report.
The benefits brought by oil and gas production on the
North Slope have come with environmental concerns and
consequences. One of the earliest major environmental im-
pact statements (EISs) was a 6-volume effort (DOI 1972a)
that examined the effects of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. As
production on the North Slope increased, many other studies
and EISs have been produced, and knowledge of the effects
of oil and gas exploration and development has increased
substantially. Environmental concerns about exploration and
development on the North Slope have focused on many sub-
jects, including but not limited to the following:
· the effects of structures on the migration of fish and
large mammals, especially caribou
· the effects on the tundra of off-road travel
· the effects on bowhead whales and other marine
mammals of seismic exploration and industrial noise
· the risk of toxic contamination of fish, wildlife, and
plants used for food by Alaska Natives
· the effects of roads (both gravel and ice)
· the effects of oil spills on terrestrial, marine, and
coastal ecosystems and on the humans that depend on them
· the effects on a variety of ecosystems of transporta-
tion of material, supplies, and people
· the extent to which effects are reversible
· whether remediation is possible and will actually be
undertaken
Concerns have also focused on social consequences, such as
the effects of new roads and access to formerly isolated com-
munities; the socioeconomic effects of jobs related to oil and
gas development; the effects on subsistence practices, either
as a result of the introduction of a wage economy or because
of environmental change; and loss of wildland and wilder-
ness values.
There is an extensive research literature on the actual
and potential effects of oil and gas activity on the North
Slope's physical, biotic, and human environments (e.g., BP
1991; Engelhardt 1985; Kruse et al. 1982; Loughlin 1994;
MMS 1990a,b, 1991, 1992; Truett and Johnson 2000;
Walker et al. 1986a, 1987a,b). Much of this work has been
sponsored by the Outer Continental Shelf Environmental
Assessment Program (OCSEAP) of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of the
Interior and by OCSEAP's successor, the Environmental
Studies Program of the Department of the Interior. Addi-
tional research has been funded by the U.S. Army, the Na-
tional Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, the
Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior,
and the Department of Energy. Many studies have been per-
formed and funded by the oil industry, and university re-
searchers have contributed a large amount of information
13
about the region. Despite the considerable research since the
1960s to assess the effects of oil and gas exploration, devel-
opment, and production, no integrated, comprehensive
analysis of cumulative impacts has been attempted. Under-
standing the cumulative effects of oil and gas development
at a variety of locations over time is critical to informed,
long-term decision-making about resource management.
THE PRESENT STUDY
In 1999, the U.S. Congress asked the National Research
Council for assistance in addressing this gap in understand-
ing (U.S. Congress: Conf. Rept 106-379 [H.R. 26841 Fiscal
Year 2000 Appropriations for the Environmental Protection
Agency). In response, the Council established the Commit-
tee on Cumulative Environmental Effects of Oil and Gas
Activities on Alaska's North Slope and charged it with pro-
viding a comprehensive analysis, including conclusions and
recommendations (Box 1-1~.
Although the cumulative effects of North Slope oil and
gas activities especially production extend beyond the
region, the committee's focus was confined to Alaska's
North Slope and as far into the Arctic Ocean as there is evi-
dence of environmental effects. As a result, the committee
did not consider releases of compounds that could affect glo-
bal atmospheric chemistry or the contribution of the burning
of North Slope oil to global climate warming. The contribu-
tion of North Slope oil and gas activities to the accumulation
of such atmospheric effects is small on a global basis. Cli-
mate change is considered as it interacts with the effects of
oil and gas activities on the North Slope.
The committee' s 18 members, who are experts in a wide
range of disciplines (see Appendix K), met eight times over
the course of the study. The committee relied on its mem-
bers' expertise, on an extensive review of the literature, and
on information gathered from public meetings held through-
out the state. Meetings and site visits were held in Alpine,
Anchorage, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Arctic Vil-
lage, Endicott, Fairbanks, Kaktovik on Barter Island, and the
Prudhoe Bay oil field. Appendix A lists those who made
presentations and otherwise assisted the committee.
UNDERSTANDING AND ASSESSING
CUMULATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
The ecologist W.E. Odum wrote (1982) that when nu-
merous small decisions about related environmental issues
are made independently, the combined consequences of
those decisions are not considered. As a result, the patterns
of the environmental perturbations or their effects over large
areas and long periods are not analyzed. This is the basic
issue of cumulative effects assessment. The general approach
to identifying and assessing cumulative effects evolved after
passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
of 1969, and the committee has followed that approach.
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14
Although the NEPA requires EISs for many major
projects, if those projects are considered separately from
similar projects or in isolation from different kinds of
projects in the same area, some of their effects their cumu-
lative effects are likely to be missed. In 1978, the Council
on Environmental Quality promulgated regulations imple-
menting the NEPA that are binding on all federal agencies
(40 CFR Parts 1500-1508 [19781~. A cumulative effect was
defined as "the incremental impact of the action when added
to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future ac-
tions.... Cumulative impacts can result from individually
minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a
period of time." For example, an EIS might conclude that
the environmental effects of a single power plant on an estu-
ary might be small and, hence, judged to be acceptable. But
the effects of a dozen plants on the estuary are likely to be
substantial, and perhaps of a different nature than the effects
of a single plant in other words, they are likely to accumu-
late. Even a series of EISs might not identify or predict that
accumulation to produce those more serious or different ef-
fects that result from the interaction of multiple activities.
Cumulative impact assessment (CIA) arose to address such
considerations.
In interpreting the broad charge of assessing cumulative
effects, the committee focused on whether the effects under
consideration interact or accumulate over time and space,
either through repetition or combined with other effects, and
under what circumstances and to what degree they might
CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF ALASKA NORTH SLOPE OIL AND GAS
accumulate. As an example, consider a repeated environ-
mental insult that is localized in space and occurs so infre-
quently that natural processes of recovery or human efforts
can eliminate its effects before another insult occurs. In this
case, one would conclude that the effects of the insult do not
accumulate (rather than concluding that the insult is not "a
cumulative effected. This approach also directs attention to
the circumstances under which effects might accumulate.
The accumulation of effects can result from a variety of
processes (NRC 1986~. The most important ones are:
· Time crowding frequent and repeated effects on a
single environmental medium. This would be the case, for
example, if repeated oil spills occurred on an area of tundra
before that area had recovered from previous spills. Time
crowding also can result if there are long delays before the
effects of an action are fully manifest. An increase in the
melting of permafrost might not become apparent until de-
cades after the actions that caused it were initiated.
· Space crowding high density of effects on a single
environmental medium, such as a concentration of drilling
pads in a small region so that the areas affected by individual
pads overlap. Space crowding can result even from actions
that occur at great distances from one another. For example,
air pollution from temperate latitudes can interact with local
sources of contamination to increase atmospheric haze on
the North Slope.
· Compounding effects synergistic effects attributable
to multiple sources on a single environmental medium, such
as the combined effects of gaseous and liquid emissions from
multiple sources on a single area, or nonlinear effects, or
interaction of natural and anthropogenic effects, such as the
Exxon Valdez oil spill and E1 Nino events.
· Thresholds effects that become qualitatively differ-
ent once some threshold of disturbance is reached, such as
when eutrophication exhausts the oxygen in a lake, convert-
ing it to a different type of lake.
· Nibbling progressive loss of habitat resulting from
a sequence of activities, each of which has fairly innocuous
consequences, but the consequences on the environment ac-
cumulate, for example by causing the extirpation of a spe-
cies from the area.
These examples illustrate why recognizing and measuring
the accumulation of effects depends on the correct choice of
domain temporal, spatial for the assessment. If the time
domain chosen to analyze the effects of a power plant on an
estuary is the plant's period of operation and the space do-
main is that covered by its exhaust plume, then the accumu-
lation of the effects of multiple plants will be missed if a
series of EISs analyzes each plant in isolation. Alternatively,
if the space domain is the entire estuary, and the time do-
main is long enough to include the commissioning of several
plants, then at least some accumulation of effects is likely to
be detected. Effects typically accumulate as the result of re-
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INTRODUCTION
pealed activities of similar or different types. However, in
some cases the effects of a single action or event can accu-
mulate. This is especially true if the effects persist for a long
time and are added to by the effects of other activities, with
the result that there is a change from what would have re-
sulted if the single event had not occurred.
Although the assessment of cumulative effects has a his-
tory of several decades (e.g., NRC 1986), it is still a complex
task. The responses of the many components of the environ-
ment (receptors) likely to be affected by an action or series
of actions differ in nature and in the areas and periods over
which they are manifest. An action or series of actions might
have effects that accumulate on some receptors but not on
others, or on a given receptor at one time of the year but not
at another. Therefore, a full analysis of how and when ef-
fects accumulate requires multiple assessments.
To address this problem the committee attempted to
identify the essential components of a such an assessment:
· Specify the class of actions whose effects are to be
analyzed.
· Designate the appropriate time and space domain in
which the relevant actions occur.
· Identify and characterize the set of receptors to be
assessed.
· Determine the magnitude of effects on the receptors
and whether those effects are accumulating.
These criteria cannot always be applied because of data limi-
tations. As will become apparent later in this report, the ef-
fects of individual actions range from brief or local to wide-
spread, long-lasting, and sometimes irreversible.
At the most general level, the class of actions consid-
ered by the committee encompasses all of those associated
with oil and gas development. The spatial domain is the
North Slope of Alaska and its adjacent marine waters. The
temporal domain is 1965 to 2025, or in some cases 2050, and
the receptors are the physical, biological, and human sys-
tems in the region.
The committee conducted analyses of specific activi-
ties (e.g., seismic exploration, road building, gravel min-
ing), and determined their most significant effects (indi-
vidual or collective) on specific receptors (e.g., tundra
vegetation, species of special concern, subsistence hunt-
ing, employment).
A particularly challenging problem is to determine the
area over which the effects of an activity, such as building a
drilling pad, a road, or a seismic survey trail, are felt. Some
analyses measure the effects of an activity by its "foot-
print" the physical area covered by a drilling pad or road,
for example although the effects can extend well beyond
that space. The effects of a road extend beyond the actual
physical area where the gravel smothers vegetation. Large
vehicles make noise that can frighten wildlife some distance
from the road; they raise dust that settles downwind, affect-
15
ing the timing of snow melt and thus the underlying vegeta-
tion. Roads also impede drainage. A highway can increase
access and thus bring hunters to an area. All of these effects
can be defined and measured.
To conduct an analysis of how effects accumulate, one
must understand what would occur in the absence of a given
activity. The accumulated effects are the difference be-
tween that probable history and the actual history or pro-
jected effects of the action. Such analyses are most readily
accomplished if good baseline data are available or if data
are available about the same kinds of receptors in similar
areas that are not influenced by comparable actions. In
some cases, the lack of such information prevented the
committee from identifying and assessing possible effects
of some activities.
In estimating the accumulation of effects it is customary
to assume that the only source of environmental change is
the action under study, and that the environmental setting
itself has no bearing. There is a challenging complication in
the Alaskan Arctic, however, because the climate is expected
to warm so rapidly that the effects of current activities could
be much greater on the permafrost landscape than would be
the case if the climate were relatively stable.) The com-
mittee's prediction of the accumulation of effects over sev-
eral decades has been limited by ignorance of the details of
how this climate change will proceed and thus of its poten-
tial effects on North Slope ecosystems.
Even if accumulating effects are identified, their magni-
tude and their biological, economic, and social importance
must be assessed. Discontinuities or inflection points in bi-
otic or social relationships, a change in some important pro-
cess, or the widespread perception of members of an affected
community of the importance of some change are generally
associated with environmentally or socially important ef-
fects. The committee assessed biotic and social importance
separately for each receptor.
Although the committee was directed to evaluate the
cumulative effects of oil and gas activities on the North
Slope, the accumulation of physical, biotic, and human envi-
ronmental effects of those activities extends beyond the re-
gion. Moreover, activities elsewhere in the world influence
what happens to the North Slope environment. Although the
committee followed its charge and concentrated attention on
the North Slope, external effects had to be considered in situ-
ations where they combine with activities on the North Slope
to influence the nature and extent of environmental effects
there.
~ The largest human contribution to climate warming is the burning of
fossil hydrocarbon fuels. Although the resultant climate change affects the
North Slope probably more than lower-latitude areas this effect is not
considered as an effect of North Slope oil and gas activities in this report
because the North Slope provides only a small fraction of all the fossil
hydrocarbons burned on earth. However, it is an important factor that must
be considered in all analyses of this type.
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6
SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE
Information about Alaska's North Slope, the function-
ing of its human communities and ecosystems, and the ef-
fects of industrial activities during the past century comes
from many sources, including peer-reviewed literature, gov-
ernment reports, and industry documents. The committee
made a special effort to evaluate and incorporate the tradi-
tional and local knowledge of residents of the North Slope.
People have lived on the North Slope since long before in-
dustrial activity began, and because they have had intimate,
sustained contact with the immediate environment, they pro-
vide a unique source of knowledge. The committee did not
compare the North Slope with the Russian experience be-
cause despite some environmental similarities environ-
mental laws and regulations, societal factors, and economic
systems are very different from Alaska's, and because reli-
able information is not easy to obtain.
Despite the evident value of the traditional and local
knowledge of Alaska Natives, their insights have been poorly
incorporated into the overall public perception, both on and
off the North Slope, about cumulative changes and their
causes. The reasons for this failure are generally understood
(Box 1-2, Appendix H), but the problem is still largely unre-
solved (but see Kofinas et al. [20021 and Huntington [20001
for descriptions of incorporation of traditional knowledge
into research on environmental change in the Arctic).
Most cross-cultural collaborations have been informal
and occur on a case-by-case basis. They often begin because
of the interest and commitment of individual researchers who
have no special training in working across cultures. There
are few policy directives and only limited financial support
for use of traditional and local knowledge or for researchers
to engage in cross-cultural awareness and communication
orientation programs. Consequently, institutional commit-
ment to understanding and using traditional and local knowl-
edge for stewardship and research has been subject to shifts
in emphasis as governments change. Those shifts are a source
of frustration and distrust for Alaska Natives who have to
undertake extensive and costly efforts to educate new ad-
ministrators, policy-makers, and managers each time they
change.
Scientists find it difficult to assess the quality and spa-
tial scales of relevance of much traditional knowledge, so it
is difficult to determine whether the observations offered by
any Alaska Native collaborator are valid. Alaska Natives,
for their part, have told the committee that they are some-
times skeptical of the scientific motivations to acquire infor-
mation and thus can be reluctant to cooperate or participate.
Moreover, they are rarely involved in the formative stages of
collaborative research, and for the most part they are not
involved in the actual research efforts. In addition, many
Alaska Native elders, who are potentially important sources
of information, do not speak English fluently or at all, and
they are not schooled in communicating with Western cul-
CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF ALASKA NORTH SLOPE OIL AND GAS
OCR for page 17
INTRODUCTION
sure, thus diminishing the value of any information ex-
changes that may occur.
Traditional and local knowledge can provide useful,
qualitative information to scientists and an early warning
system for identifying emergent biological or environmental
trends and anomalies in local, regional, or ecosystem-wide
geographical areas. For example, Alaska Natives in the Arc-
tic have reported changes in migration patterns of the bow-
head whale, changes in the thickness and elasticity of seal
skins, and changes in the taste and color of "Eskimo tea."
Many changes in wildlife are apparent only to people who
interact with the animals regularly; scientists who do not eat
the local diet would not know, for example, that the taste of
seal meat has changed no matter how much research has
been conducted. If communication and collaboration were
improved, traditional and local knowledge could provide
scientists with new and timely hypotheses to pursue in their
search for the causes of wildlife declines.
Traditional and local knowledge can influence many
aspects of research, but better and more systematic ways to
access and use this information must be developed if that
value is to be realized (e.g., Huntington 2000~. The process
must consider, among other things, issues of communication
protocols, dispute resolution, and information exchange; ap-
propriate use of information; protocols for attribution of in-
formation sources; compensation for research collaborators;
community relations; and cross-cultural communications
and cultural-awareness training. The failure to seek and use
traditional and local knowledge can have far-reaching con-
sequences, including the loss of time and resources. The as-
sessment of changes in the bowhead whale population is one
instance in which traditional knowledge has been incorpo-
rated into the design and conduct of a major, long-term re-
search effort (Albert 2001~.
Bowheacl Whales
Estimating population size for the Bering Sea bowhead
population became a priority in the mid- to late 1970s when
there was increasing concern in the International Whaling
Commission (IWC) that the subsistence harvest in Alaska
was unduly pressuring the stock. At the same time, there was
growing interest in offshore petroleum development. All of
this prompted the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)
of the U.S. Department of Commerce to undertake a popula-
tion estimate. In 1976 and 1977 observers were placed at the
seaward edge of the shore-fast ice near Point Barrow, where
the passing whales came close to shore. Their data suggested
a population of 600-2,000 whales (Tillman 1980~. Data from
1978 and 1979 (Braham et al. 1980), which included ice-
based and aerial surveys, yielded an estimate of 1,783-2,865
(mean 2,264) whales (Braham et al. 1980~. The numbers
were so low that the IWC initially set a 1978 harvest quota
of zero whales. However, a revised quota of 12 landed or 18
struck was set after a special IWC meeting was called by the
17
United States. This experience alarmed bowhead-dependent
communities in Alaska, who believed their hunt was being
unduly restricted because the whale counters were not count-
ing the whales accurately (Albert 2001~.
In the early 1980s, the responsibility for estimating bow-
head population size was transferred to the people of north-
ern Alaska. By then, a substantial difference had developed
in views between the Alaska Native hunters and most scien-
tists familiar with the bowhead issue. The "scientific wis-
dom" of the late 1970s was that the northward migrating
bowhead whales traveled primarily in elongated open areas
(leads) in the deteriorating and drifting ice, and that most of
the passing whales could be counted by observers at the sea-
ward edge of the shore-fast ice.
Alaska Native hunters cited their own observations, as
well as information handed down through the generations,
that bowheads passing Point Barrow move on a broad front
(to about 20 km [12 mid wide) and are not restricted to large
areas of open water. They also move through areas of broken
ice and heavy ice, not just through areas of open water, and
they use their heads to fracture ice from below to produce
small breathing holes that are easily missed by observers
(Albert 1996, 2001; George et al. 1989~. The Natives there-
fore believed that the population estimate of 2,000 animals
was far too low.
Those comments were considered by scientists of the
NMFS and others and a multiyear counting program was
designed to assess them. The new census used both ice-based
visual observations and acoustical techniques to help detect
passing whales. During the spring field season of 1984 the
use of passive acoustics used to locate calling whales at
distances of 16-19 km (10-12 mi) was fully integrated into
the census (Clark et al. 1985, Dronenburg et al. 1986~.
To correlate the number of calls with the number of pass-
ing whales, a tracking algorithm linked a sequence of acoustic
locations, visual sightings, or both to form a whale track
(Ellison et al.1987a,b, Ko and Zeh 1988, Sonntag et al.1986~.
The acoustical techniques, the associated tracking algorithm,
and the related complex statistical analysis allow the visual
and acoustic data to be combined (Clark et al.1996; Clark and
Ellison 1988, 1989; Sonntag et al. 1986; Zeh et al. 1990) to
produce more accurate population estimates. Those estimates
are submitted annually to the IWC's Scientific Committee for
rigorous peer review. During the 1987 Scientific Committee
meeting, that group agreed to a best estimate of 7,200 whales
(2,400 standard error) (Gentlemen and Zeh 1987, IWC 1988,
Zeh et al. 1988~. Over the next several years, as the tracking
algorithm, acoustic techniques, and statistical techniques were
refined, the population size estimate became more precise and
the harvest quota increased. By 1996, the IWC-accepted esti-
mate was 8,200 whales (with a 95% confidence interval from
7,200 to 9,400) (IWC 1997, Raftery and Zeh 1998~. The esti-
mated annual rate of increase (after hunting removals) from
1978 to 1993 was 3.2% (with a 95% confidence interval of
1.4-5.1) (Raftery and Zeh 1998~.
OCR for page 18
18
Thus, after many years of intensive study, the assertions
of Alaska Native hunters were verified (Albert 2001~. This
prolonged and continuing effort is one significant instance
in which several aspects of traditional knowledge have been
confirmed by scientific study and have been used in man-
agement decisions.
REPORT ORGANIZATION
Chapters 2 and 3 set the stage by describing the hu-
man, physical, and biotic environments of Alaska's North
Slope. They are not intended to be exhaustive. They present
only enough information for a general overview. Chapter 4
provides the history of oil and gas activities on the North
Slope. It includes brief descriptions of how oil is found,
extracted, and transported, and it describes the physical in-
frastructure of North Slope oil fields. It ends with descrip-
tions of recent technological advances and of how oil and
gas activities can affect the environment. Chapter 5 is the
committee's analysis of a plausible scenario of future in-
dustrial activity that assumes continued exploration and
production. It provides the basis for the committee's pre-
dictions of how the effects of oil and gas activities might
accumulate in the future.
Chapters 6-9 treat the physical environment, plants, ani-
mals, and humans, respectively, as receptors of environmen-
tal effects. Those chapters present the committee's assess-
ments of the effects to date and the degree to which they
CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF ALASKA NORTH SLOPE OIL AND GAS
have accumulated, and their potential to accumulate in the
future. The committee also identifies some effects that ap-
pear not to have been serious or to have accumulated to date.
Each chapter includes a summary of the committee's find-
ings and research recommendations. Chapter 10 describes
knowledge gaps and recommends research; Chapter 11 sum-
marizes the committee's findings about major effects and
their accumulation.
A series of appendixes provides additional detail on a
variety of topics. They include information on committee
meeting places, dates, and participants (Appendix A); ab-
breviations and their meanings (Appendix B); a history of
factors that influence petroleum exploration and develop-
ment on the North Slope (Appendix C); and a description of
recent technological developments (Appendix D). Appendix
E provides the analysis of oil industry data, provided mainly
by BP, that was performed for the committee by Aeromap,
Inc. Appendixes F and G describe spills of oil and saline
water on the North Slope and some of their effects. Appen-
dix H is a signed essay by a North Slope Native on reconcil-
ing traditional and Western scientific knowledge. Appendix
I, reproduced from an EIS for leasing in the Beaufort Sea,
describes the legal framework for oil and gas activities on
state lands of the North Slope. Appendix J describes a
method for analyzing how economic consequences of long-
lasting biotic and physical effects might accumulate. Ap-
pendix K provides biographical information about the
committee' s members.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
gas activities
