March 14, 2006
Tuesday

Every time I read a letter or news article about how ANWR won't help America at all or it is some apocalyptic disaster that is being invited on us, I wonder what these people are thinking. Where is the evidence? The ANWR refuge is about 20 MILLION acres! This is about the size of Connecticut, the last proposal in Congress proposed drilling on about 2,000 acres. Reserves of about 10.3 billion barrels (twice of what Texas has).We heard all the doomsday stories when Prudhoe was being brought online, someone please produce some statistics showing this natural disaster!

The next argument is that this is an inconsequential amount of oil. Tell me, is the amount of oil we have gotten from Saudi Arabia over the last 30 years inconsequential? Because this is the amount of oil that is estimated to sit under ANWR! It is the same amount that we have gotten out of Texas the last 58 years! In fact the estimates are that all the oil in ANWR could fuel California's 37 million residents for approximately 15 years, or New York for 33 years. Even more staggering, North Dakota would need about 393 years to use up ANWR (Alaska is around 220 years).

The argument that this one oil reserve is not able to make a dent in the US consumption is false, we could reduce our foreign dependency by up to 20%, this would help alleviate our dependency on Venezuela and Saudi Arabia - where we get about 60% or our supply now.

We are running out of oil, the supply is limited and as we make the transition to an economy that is not based on fossil fuels we need to realize that ANWR could make that transition easier on all Americans. If making that transition on the average Americans pocket book is greedy, then by God call me greedy!!

Timothy Droke
Mesa, Arizona

About: Timothy Droke was born and raised in Petersburg, Alaska and lived in Ketchikan for about 14 years. Droke is Tlingit. He now lives in Arizona.

 

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