News of the North

Once development begins in a region, it's easy to justify developing a little bit more.... and a little bit more..... and a little bit more. From CP Wire, February 21, 2006:

INUVIK, N.W.T. (CP) - Industrialization would inevitably creep through the Western Arctic if a $7-billion pipeline in the Mackenzie Valley goes ahead, an expert on Alaskan energy development warned Tuesday.

Gordon Morians said such activity has already damaged wildlife stocks in the northern U.S. state and is likely to do the same in Canada. "The pattern in development is so familiar and clear," said Morians, lead author of an exhaustive 300-page study of Alaska's experience with the energy industry over three decades.

"Each (development) increment makes the next increment more feasible. It'll never happen, just for fundamental economic reasons, differently in the Mackenzie River Valley or anywhere else you get a major, basin-opening hydrocarbon development."

In Alaska, bowhead whale migration patterns have shifted. Caribou have been displaced from their calving grounds. Migratory birds have suffered from having their nesting areas opened up to predators, he said.
"Definitely people should be concerned about effects on caribou," he said. "We've demonstrated it occurs in Alaska. It's almost certain to occur here."

Morians presented a map to the Joint Review Panel holding public hearings on the proposed Mackenzie natural gas project that shows Alaska's North Slope being gradually enmeshed in proliferating roads, seismic lines, well sites and pipelines.

"This is typical of the kind of industrial expansion that occurs when a new area is opened up with a road and associated facilities," he told the panel. "Such expansion will differ in detail in the Northwest Territories, but a pattern bearing these characteristics is inevitable."

Read the full article here.