Ugh, Wilderness!: The horror of 'ANWR,' the American elite's favorite hellhole

National Review, August 6, 2001 by Jonah Goldberg

This is the miracle of directional drilling, a relatively new technology that environmentalist ideologues are loath to admit even exists, because it runs completely counter to the earth-gouging stereotypes of yesteryear. Directional drilling makes it possible to drill in virtually any direction for miles. Indeed, the drilling can go down hundreds of feet, then sideways, then upwards again, like a fishhook. Don't think of an oil well as a straw, but as an octopus, with tentacles stretching out in all directions. If the Washington Monument were an absurdly tall directional oil well, it could extract oil from underneath the Bethesda suburbs, Arlington National Cemetery, and the Capitol dome-without waking up a sleeping Bethesda baby, rattling an Arlington headstone, or knocking Tom DeLay's bullwhip from the wall.

Today, crews aren't allowed on the tundra. "If I took a leak out there, I'd get fired," an engineer tells me. "In the winter, if you spill some coffee into the snow, you'd better go get a shovel and dig it up."

One of the reasons there is so little environmental impact is that these are the M*A*S*H units of oil exploration: The entire operation is on wheels. Pretty much everything in Alpine doubles as a cosmic-sized Tonka truck. In order to avoid roadwork on the precious tundra, the oil companies build immense ice roads that can bear massive stresses, but still melt harmlessly during the summer. Divided into 15 modules weighing over 15,000 tons, almost the entire Alpine installation was driven, literally, over the Arctic Ocean, and across miles of tundra- without leaving so much as a pothole.

During my tour, the "company man"-that's really what they call them- walks us around the well and through the huge machinery that processes the oil and washes the gravel thrown off by the drilling. I expected the oil workers to feel more than a little put out by all of the environmental hoops they are forced to jump through. But I can't find anyone to say so. In fact, everyone brags about how they run a "zero discharge" facility. "What comes on the slope, comes off the slope," is a mantra. Alongside the runway are huge piles of garbage slated to be flown back to civilization.

Regardless, the media coverage of North Slope oil extraction is a constant source of exasperation to the engineers and roughnecks. For example, the biggest topic of conversation during my stay here is a recent issue of Field & Stream that asserted that bored Prudhoe workers were shooting endangered animals for fun in their off hours. It is the source of constant eye-rolling, jokes, and sighs among the allegedly bored and dangerous workers.

"I knew a guy who got fired for throwing a rock at a fox," the former ranger tells me, with great exasperation. He wasn't throwing rocks for sport, mind you; apparently almost all of the Arctic foxes are rabid. If you get bitten by a rabid fox with inactive rabies, you get those infamous shots. If you get bitten by a fox with active rabies, the company pays for your funeral. "Every single fox head I've sent to Anchorage for testing has come up positive," he explains. I make a mental note to thank God that I don't have a job that requires the harvesting of rabid fox heads.