I am writing in response to the Jan. 26 letter to the editor titled “Good stewardship.”
The “good stewardship” writer implies that the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) has been nothing short of a miraculous wildlife-enhancing project. He furthermore claims that the footprint at pump station No. 1 is remarkable.
However, there are 11 pump stations throughout (TAPS) and the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company’s so-called good stewardship has certainly not been as sterling as the aforementioned writer suggests.
In recent years, approximately 500 oil spills have occurred annually in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and along the 800-mile pipeline, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
The largest oil pipeline leak in North Slope history poured out as many as 267,000 gallons of oil at the Prudhoe Bay complex for five days before being discovered, according to media reports.
Then there are the good ole Alaskan boys in the North who have exhibited on numerous occasions the same diminished mental capacity as their inbred southern refried hillbilly cousins in the South.
An Alaskan out on a drunken binge with his gun shot a hole in the Alyeska Pipeline which caused at least 150,000 gallons of oil to spill onto the tundra. A year after the pipeline opened a hole was blasted in the pipeline with explosives spilling approximately 15,000 barrels of oil onto the tundra.
After 32 years, the tundra has not recovered at the Chevron KIC-1 exploratory well site located in the 1002 zone of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Apparently that’s considered “good stewardship.”
Rick Sindars,
Port Angeles