While we would rather be spending our precious time actively promoting positive projects and programs that fulfill our goals, we find that the U.S. Minerals Management Service proposed environmental impact statement for Lease Sales 191 and 199 in lower Cook Inlet are in direct violation of our principles and efforts. We must, then, emphatically state that Alaskans for Clean Water are completely against MMS's proposed Lease Sales 191 and 199.
We feel that our community has already made its position clear on this issue and that the MMS is trying to shove this lease sale down our throats regardless of our opposition and the major risks this development will bring. We feel like the wool is being pulled over our eyes in the form of a 4-inch thick EIS. In 1995, proposed Lease Sale 149 wasn't as arrogant and didn't cover as much area as this year's version, yet it was mostly shot down due to our community's strong and consolidated opposition.
The MMS is obviously using the present political climate to slide this one in. Though these lease sales cover half a million more acres and include more treacherous waters than Lease Sale 149, the EIS somehow decrees that there is only a 19 percent chance of a large oil spill, when 1995's EIS stated a best-scenario estimate at 27 percent. Hmmm.
Though Homer's economy held its own this year in an overall ailing economy, thanks to tourism, this EIS barely offers any analysis on the effects oil rigs and spills will have on Kachemak Bay's Critical Habitat Area, the Port Graham and Nanwalek's Area Meriting Special Attention (AMSA) and their subsistence resources, and commercial, personal-use and sport fisheries.
Don't bother looking through this heavy EIS document for promises that this oil exploration and the probable spills won't affect our sea birds and marine mammals, because there are none. Can they guarantee that no oil will hit the five national wildlife refuges, four national parks and other state game refuges and critical habitat areas that border this lease sale? No, not even close.
It becomes a battle between our natural resources that we need sustainably protected for future generations and the shortsightedness of the oil and gas industry and the government agencies that support them. This short-sightedness has long been apparent in the way our government agencies quietly stand by and say nothing, which speaks volumes, actively promote lease sales (MMS) and let the industry dump billions of gallons of wastes into Cook Inlet each year (EPA).
Years from now, when our children and grandchildren are living here in Homer, we sincerely hope there are still good healthy fisheries and ecosystems around without a myriad of oil and gas rigs in clear view of the Homer Spit, with pollution problems and spills plaguing our resources.
Which is more important: make a quick few bucks mostly for some faraway big shots, or hang on to a sustainable and more conservation-based economy with a stronger fisheries-, research- and tourism-based economy that will maintain and improve our quality of life?
It is highly likely that in the next 20 years or so, alternative energy technologies will be available to quickly transition us away from our dependence on this black goo. If we don't stop this madness, we will likely find ourselves looking back in the future and wondering why we severely damaged Kachemak Bay and have a myriad of oil rigs and industrial development surrounding us, for absolutely no sane reason.
We are not alone in realizing, more than ever, the importance of developing and implementing alternative energy options. Where is the government agency that spends millions researching tidal or wind energy in Cook Inlet?
Many of us are active in Vessels of Hope's alternative energy project, team which meets regularly to discuss and explore many energy systems and options. We are getting fired up about tidal power generators off the coast of Holland and England, working on bringing hydrogen fuel cells and biodiesel (vegetable oil fuel that can be used in diesel engines) to Homer, and dreaming of the day when our community is mostly energized by nonpetroleum systems and fuels.
This demand for oil exploration seems archaic and destructive. It seems to us that a country that so proudly flies its flags everywhere would have enough self-respect to put its incredible talent and ingenuity to work instead of holding onto this degrading oil paradigm.
Homer resident Kyra Riley is chair of Alaskans for Clean Water.
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