The coastal plain was part of the original wildlife range established by President Eisenhower in 1960. The roads and pipelines and industrial complex would not all be concentrated in a compact area like Dulles. This claim is like bunching up the strands of a drift net without counting the miles of spaces in between. The roads and pipelines would stretch over hundreds of miles impacting thousands of acres of wildlife habitat. This industrial complex would invade a wilderness area unique on the North Slope.
Development can coexist with wildlife.
It is a critical part of our nation's preeminent wilderness and would be destroyed by oil development. The Department of Interior concluded in a 1987 report that oil development in the coastal plain would cause major impacts to the Porcupine Caribou Herd, muskox, water quality and quantity, subsistence hunting and fishing, and wilderness. No matter how well done, oil exploration and development has a lasting impact on the environment. The oil industry promises no harm, but remember the Exxon Valdez spill which was North Slope crude oil. Seabird, seal and sea otter populations still have not recovered.