Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Dispute
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, is a refuge geared toward preserving national wildlife in northeastern Alaska. ANWR is about 19 million acres, in space, and contains a potential drilling spot for oil and petroleum. The potential drilling spot is a small area known as the 10-02 Area. It is only 1.5 million acres, or 8%, of ANWR, would even be considered for development (What is ANWR). The controversy surrounding ANWR is whether to drill or not to drill into the 10-02 area. Some people want to preserve the wilderness and to find more fuel-efficient technologies. Others want to lower gas prices and to create more job opportunities. If the government decides to drill for oil, it could possibly lead to about 17 billion barrels of oil, to last the United States for the next 20 years. According to the official ANWR website, Prudhoe Bay is located 60 miles west of ANWR and has produced about 10 billion barrels of oil in the past 20 years. It is currently producing about 1.4 million barrels a day, but is slowly declining; this induces the need for a new source. The northeastern part of ANWR is America’s best opportunity in finding another oil and gas field the size of Prudhoe Bay. The coastal plain of ANWR could produce up to 1.5 million barrels of oil a day and would save the U.S. $14 billion a year in imports (Making the Case). 75% of Alaskans want to drill in the designated ANWR area, 10-02. They feel that it could possibly relieve Americans of their foreign dependency for imported oil and petroleum. The United States currently spends up to $330 billion on foreign oil imports, not including the money used to protect and acquire it. The total area of area10-02 only amounts to 8% of ANWR’s total area, which is 1.5 million acres. Out of the 1.5 million acres considered for development, only 2,000 acres of the Coastal Plain would actually be affected, which is less than half of one percent (Top Ten). Drilling in ANWR would also create anywhere from 250,000 to
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