Controversial Alaska photos displayed

[Judi Lynn]

Controversial Alaska photos displayed

By TERENCE CHEA - Associated Press Writer - 10/05/03

SAN FRANCISCO — Museum-goers in San Francisco will soon get an uncensored look at Alaska wilderness photos that ignited a minor uproar in the nation's capital this spring.

The new exhibit features 49 photos of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — 19 million acres of pristine wilderness at the center of a fierce debate between environmentalists and the Bush administration.

President Bush and the oil industry want to allow drilling on 1.5 million acres of the refuge's coastal plain, where they believe oil is abundant. Environmental groups say drilling will damage one of the country's largest tracts of untouched wilderness.

Freelance photographer Subhankar Banerjee's photos were displayed at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington over the past four months. But drilling opponents say the exhibit was moved to a basement hallway and stripped of its original captions for political reasons. (snip/...)

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2003/10/05/national/a11100503_01.txt

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

1. GREAT exposure-there are possible tragic consequences from oil co's

‘‘This is one of the most remarkable places on our planet,'' Banerjee said. ‘‘This is not a frozen wasteland of snow and ice.''

I would like to see more DUers concerned about the environmental disregard of the Shrub Admin (Ahnold's buddies)

Just think what Ahhnold could do to Calee- Fawn-ya

the FACTS:
http://wwbphoto.com/refuge.html
The refuge preserves a continuum of Arctic and sub-Arctic ecozones.
It contains the greatest variety of plant and animal life of any conservation area in the circumpolar north.
It is home to thirty-six species of land mammals; nine marine mammal species live along its coast; thirty-six fish species inhabit its rivers and lakes; and 180 species of birds converge here from six continents.





.

[mhr]

2. Many of The Photos Can Be Seen Here

http://wwbphoto.com/Photo1-61Icebergs.html

[hippywife]

3. Absolutely stunning

and breathtaking!!

No matter how many times I see photos of this area, I'm totally awed.

<sarcasm> Hey, this looks like a good place for an oil well and all the destruction necessary to put it here. </sarcasm>

[roguevalley]

4. And its only one place up here that is dazzling. There are so many

and we have to protect them. The ANWR is gorgeous. Pictures
can't really do them justice but these are so wonderful. It
is estimated that a mark made on this kind of land takes
about 200 years to heal. This place is fragile. We have to
protect it. NO DRILLING IN ANWR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[KittyWampus]

18. Unnamed Lake

[theHandpuppet]

7. Amazing!

Thanks so much for the link.

I found this quote (which accompanied one of these incredible photos) particularly poignant and yet alarming:

“The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with clasped hands that we might act with restraint, leaving room for the life that is destined to come.”
--- Terry Tempest Williams

If we allow Bush, Cheney and the oil-gubbers to destroy this land there will be no turning back the clock, folks!

[dArKeR]

8. Thanks!

[MGKrebs]

9. Wow. Thanks for the link.

Stunning.

[alarimer]

10. very pretty

They should have an exhibit where they show photos of drilling sites, just to show people the damage done in drilling.

[Whoa_Nelly]

21. This is what happens when beginning the drilling

ANWR would be devastated by the impact of just the setup for drilling.

Preparing to Drill

Once the site has been selected, it must be surveyed to determine its boundaries, and environmental impact studies may be done. Lease agreements, titles and right-of way accesses for the land must be obtained and evaluated legally. For off-shore sites, legal jurisdiction must be determined.
Once the legal issues have been settled, the crew goes about preparing the land:

The land is cleared and leveled, and access roads may be built.
Because water is used in drilling, there must be a source of water nearby. If there is no natural source, they drill a water well.
They dig a reserve pit, which is used to dispose of rock cuttings and drilling mud during the drilling process, and line it with plastic to protect the environment. If the site is an ecologically sensitive area, such as a marsh or wilderness, then the cuttings and mud must be disposed offsite -- trucked away instead of placed in a pit.
Once the land has been prepared, several holes must be dug to make way for the rig and the main hole. A rectangular pit, called a cellar, is dug around the location of the actual drilling hole. The cellar provides a work space around the hole, for the workers and drilling accessories. The crew then begins drilling the main hole, often with a small drill truck rather than the main rig. The first part of the hole is larger and shallower than the main portion, and is lined with a large-diameter conductor pipe. Additional holes are dug off to the side to temporarily store equipment -- when these holes are finished, the rig equipment can be brought in and set up.

Setting Up the Rig
Depending upon the remoteness of the drill site and its access, equipment may be transported to the site by truck, helicopter or barge. Some rigs are built on ships or barges for work on inland water where there is no foundation to support a rig (as in marshes or lakes). Once the equipment is at the site, the rig is set up.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/oil-drilling2.htm

And at this site are photos of the oil drilling environmental impact and damage done at Prudhoe Bay:

http://www.alaskawild.org/Slideshow_PB_files/frame.htm

on edit: additional info

The largest number of spills, and the largest volume of oil spilled were from accidents involving pipelines or fixed facilities (131 pipeline spills, totaling about 18.8 million gallons; 66 spills from facilities, totaling about 4.7 million gallons)

http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/faqs/history.html

[Lorien]

25. Chilling

write to your reps, and send them this, along with your objection to this senseless act (increased fuel efficentcy could save us many times what ANWR could produce)!

[Lorien]

24. beautiful

I am stunned that we have fallen so far that truth and beauty can be censored for "political reasons".

[symbolman]

5. I spent two summers up there

looking for Uranium by Helicopter for the Dept of Energy back in the early 80's, 24 hour a day sun, chased by bears, chased by villagers naked from a village back to our camp full of Vietnam Vet pilots pulling guns.. all kinds of fun..

actually crashed and was lost for three days..

wrote a screenplay about it all, and it's about saving the Caribou at the same time - a spiritual journey called "The Jesus Bolt" (not about Jesus or christianity..)

I once saw from about 2 thousand feet in a Hughs 500 D chopper, caribou swarming to such a degree that all we could see was writhing fur from horizon to horizon in all directions.. and for about 15 minutes travelling at 150 miles an hour..

that will change you forever.

Maybe people are waking up.

[izzie]

6. I got to do an odd thing once,

Road down the oil line as they were building it. I was a shock that the company did such a clean job on the land and they had to put the work camps back as they were before; and I road the same place 10 years later and the work camps were gone. So it can be done.I have been to Pump Station 1 and it does or did not look so bad and animals were all over the place. Nome Alaska was not as clean and neat believe me. I still see no reason for them to drill there.

[Lorien]

26. I would love to see "the Jesus Bolt" in

theaters someday. Have you tried Dreamworks? Jeffery is a lefty like us.

[symbolman]

43. Hi Jen6

Got his number? :)

It really is an amazing story - I didn't want to to be the only guy is SoCal that hasn't written a screenplay..

People need to see this country to "get it" - funny moments too, like taking Jimi Hendrix along playing on a boombox so the Bears don't get you while using a home made outhouse in the tundra..

[LifeDuringWartime]

28. imax

imax film, anybody? ;)

[sam sarrha]

11. they have been pumping natural gas back into the ground for storage...

there is, decades worth.. the government is subsidizing a pipeline all the way down on the west side, another engineer has a plan to just pipe over to an existing Canadian pipeline for less than 1/4 the cost of taxpayers money... but the Governor of Alaska is filling up a supertanker of PORK and demanding the line go through Alaska, the cheap route has been blackballed and isn't even mentioned in the proposial..tho it costs Billions less.

[rook1]

12. The people of Alaska

...should be the one's deciding what they want to do.

[maggrwaggr]

13. I disagree. The wilderness belongs to all the people of earth

not just a few thousand "Alaskan" humans.

[rook1]

14. I don't agree

Although I see your globalist point...I don't agree with it.

Alaska and the wilderness it contains does not belong to. Canada,England,Germany,Somolia,Afghanistan,Iran,Iraq,Syria,Israel,Yemen,Mexico,Peru,Brazil...shall I go on?

Alaska is within the borders of the US and being a state and considering states rights I say that the citizens of the state of Alsaka should detiremine what happens in regards to the drilling issue. If you live in Alaska then you have a say, if you don't...so be it.

[MattNC]

16. should it be up to them...

when the negative effects of drilling could have global consequences?

[roguevalley]

22. I disagree. I live here. I know that unemployment and bad

state budgets override a lot of people's reservations about their
responsibility to the world and to the land. If you let us decide,
we will probably agree to drill because of jobs. That's a very, very bad reason to do something that many have stated isn't necessary.

The ANWR belongs to all people. We must preserve at least one place in the world where animals can live undisturbed. We owe it to the world and to the future.

[snippy]

33. What about the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution.

Federal law is supreme over any state law or constitution. I can not imagine how someone could see it as a state issue.

[0rganism]

35. ANWR = Arctic NATIONAL Wildlife Refuge

NATIONAL, got it? NATIONAL.

Not Alaskan. Not State. NATIONAL. If Alaskans want to secede from the USA, that's their problem. Until they do, ANWR is a national wildlife refuge belonging to the USA, and its fate is in the hands of the federal gov't of the USA.

[sandnsea]

17. 'national' wildlife refuge

It doesn't belong to Alaska. It belongs to the people of the United States, in the strictest land law sense of the word 'belongs'. Just like the Grand Canyon doesn't belong to the people of Arizona.

[roguevalley]

23. most of alaska is federal land, by the way.

*

[DeathvadeR]

29. Yes let Money once again control our motives.

Plain and simple........ We are wasting our time debating wheather or not this should be done.

We will extract the Oil someday soon period. When the economy begins to collapse and the Price of gas begins to affect our everyday life we will pump that shit out as fast as we can period. It's only a matter of time

The only thing thats going to save the refuge is an alternate fuel source. like thats going to happen.......

[Ediacara]

30. Pumping natural gas INTO the ground?

Really?.....

How, may I ask, does THAT happen?

[TankLV]

15. But it's just all EMPTY SPACE serving no useful purpose.

No people - no business that need to be saved or tax relief given - no beautiful buildings and developments - no INDUSTRIES that need tax breaks!

A few wells and a big-ol' pipe would hardly be noticed in all that space!

(sarcasm off)

What incredibly amazing pictures.

[Ediacara]

19. This is printed in the Helena I-R, but NOTHING in the S F Chronicle?

Typical......

[ozone_man]

20. This place should be saved for all time.

The Smithsonian sucks. This exhibit should travel all over the country to educate people on what they can be saving.

Went to Alaska for most of August for the first time. Incredible place. Unbelievable adventures and wildlife.

[tabasco]

27. Why are these pictures controversial?

Because they are the TRUTH ! Something the propagandist repuglicans fear more than anything else. IMAGINE - simple photographs of natural landscapes become CONTROVERSIAL ! The republicans obviously do not want people to see what is at stake in their greedy oil grab. They care not for America, only for dollars.

[Blecht]

31. Exactly

The truth has become controversial.

And things become "partisan," too, when they touch on the truth.

This sleazy ploy works, though; that's why they continue to use it.

Accuse your opponent of what you're doing, and when your opponent calls you on it, become indignant and say, "See? They're just resorting to partisan politics!"

[0rganism]

34. I had the same thought when reading the headline

"Controversial? Since when are photographs of the outdoors Controversial?"

Wow. Things sure are strange on this side of the looking glass.

Of course, it's not super new. There are people who go to old growth forests and photograph them before and after the clearcutting. These, too, are referred to as "controversial".

So sad. So strange. Am I wrong to be ashamed for what my country is becoming?

[TankLV]

38. What are you going to believe - your lies or you eyes?!

Damn that pesky thing called "facts" keep getting in the way of false (repuke conservative) ideology!

Burn them photos!

Burn them books!

Burn them witches!

[Malva Zebrina]

32. these photos are exquisite

how beautiful this is. Wish I could go/be there. Congrats to Banerjee--an important visionary and one who has been needlessly trashed and humiliated by a little minded man in the WH who neither appreciates art, nor nature. He is not capable.

[phgnome]

36. the world supply must be lower than what we think

Drilling for oil up in Alaska is VERY expensive. They have to go through harder land and the extraction cost if very high. Must be getting desperate -- either (projected?) consumption rate is very high or the overall supply is getting very low.

Scary shit. With the blackouts and everything else going on, I wonder if they are being truthful about the real state of the energy crisis. I wonder if it's more serious than what we are lead to believe by the media.

[Lorien]

37. Simple solutions exist already

like increasing feul efficency; a combustion engine that gets 50% greater mileage with half the emissions was developed in Canada in the past few years, but will not be put on the market because "gas is too cheap-and the consumer isn't interested". When the Canadian government tried to buy the patent for $10 million, the corporation who owned it declined. This is all about profit; it has nothing to do with need.The oil barons want us to consume as much as we can, fast as possible- that much is clear.

[ConcernedCanuk]

40. "The oil barons want us to consume as much as we can " - ZACTLY

I am a licenced mechanic

- and way back in the late 60's

- I saw pics of a 6-barrel in-line carburetor that DOUBLED the gas mileage of almost any engine -

Hmm - I know you will be suprized that one of the "Big Three" automakers bought the patent and then "shelved" it ??

- BUT

- the Government wouldn't have had anything to do with that

- Right ???

- ya ya - tounge in cheek here

[ewagner]

39. Thank you for the link

and breathtaking pictures....these pictures are keepers.........

[jsw_81]

41. Imagine this landscape covered with ugly oil drilling facilities

[xxqqqzme]

42. My Smithsonian

renewal came up shortly after this exhibit was moved and the captions removed (the entry introduction was written by President Carter) I sent it back w/ no renewal & a note that mayB Ted Stevens, (who denied ahead of the press that he had anything 2 do w/ it), would send them a list of contributors who weren't bothered by the 1st amendment being stomped.