FEATURE - Aging Alaska pipeline still sparks controversy
Date: 12-Sep-01
Country: USA
Author: Yereth Rosen
Workers regularly seek out and patch corroded spots. Thawing permafrost, possibly an effect of global warming, has shifted some of the vertical supports that suspend the pipeline above the earth. Operators keep their eyes out for stress fractures.
And, after 13 billion barrels have rolled through the pipeline, oil flow is down to half of the 1988 peak rate of 2 million barrels a day. Some pump stations that helped the system operate at full capacity, needed when the Prudhoe Bay field was new and fresh instead of mature and declining, have been mothballed.
The pipeline gets special scrutiny as the nation's most famous and visible oil pipeline, and its setting in one of America's last great wilderness tracts. Crossing three mountain ranges and more than 800 rivers and streams, it was one of the biggest construction projects ever completed. And one of the most controversial.
President Bush is promoting new oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while environmentalists are campaigning to keep the area's wilderness intact. The pipeline would be used to carry the oil if Congress approves development.
Even without that move, operators and regulators say, there is plenty of life left in the 800-mile pipeline, as long as it clears its next major hurdle - a new comprehensive study of environmental impacts preceding renewal of the leases, first granted in 1974, that allow the system to operate.
"If it's well-maintained, it can go on for as long as we have oil," said Rhea DoBosh, spokeswoman for the Joint Pipe line Office, the collection of federal and state agencies that regulate the system. "It was not designed to last just 30 years. It was designed to last indefinitely."
STUDY ORDERED
Determining whether the pipeline system is properly maintained is the goal of the pending environmental impact study, ordered two years ago by the Clinton administration and the first of its kind mandated for a pipeline already operating and planning any alterations.
"The pipeline is currently viable for another 30 years, just based on stuff you could produce today, and not opening up any other areas," said Steve Jones, director of right-of-way renewal for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., the consortium that operates the system.
Backers of expanded drilling would like to see quick renewal of the leases, and Bush, in his national energy strategy, supported a speedy conclusion. Environmentalists are skeptical of hasty moves.
"I think they do not want a thorough review because I think they know that it cannot pass muster," said Richard Fineberg, an economist and board member of the Alaska Forum for Environmental Responbility. His organization has accused Alyeska, its owners and regulators of failing to meet their responsibilities for ensuring pipeline safety.
Alyeska's owners - then eight companies - were granted their original 30-year right-of-way lease from the U.S. government in 1974 to build and operate over the 376 miles of federal lands that the line crosses.
The state also granted a a 10-year right-of-way lease for the 344 miles of state lands crossed. The state leases have been renewed twice.
The pipeline's other 80 miles cross Native and private lands, and are subject to separate lease arrangements.
Mergers and acquisitions have narrowed Alyeska's owner group to six companies - BP, Phillips Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Unocal, Williams and Amerada Hess.
CONFIDENCE IN THE PIPELINE
Environmental officials didn't have a clear idea of what the impact of the pipeline would be when it started back in the 1970s, said a Denver-based manager for Argonne National Laboratory. Moore, who worked on the initial government studies, is working on the new review as well.
"From what I've seen, there is a high level of confidence and there's some good reason for that," said Moore.
Indeed, some of the ill effects forecast then never occurred. Contrary to predictions of confused animals, for example, caribou an
