Construction Planned To Prepare Alaska's Arctic Refuge For Oil Drilling
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/construction_planned_to_prepare_alaskas_arctic_refuge_for_oil_drilling-08-jun-2018-155871-article/June 08, 2018
he Trump administration said on Thursday it would spend $4 million on construction projects in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in preparation for oil drilling in the nation's biggest wildlife park.
In an announcement that touted planned improvements to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service visitor facilities, the Department of the Interior said it has approved spending on projects for "Oil Exploration Readiness" in the coastal plain of the Arctic refuge.
The Trump administration is pushing for an oil lease sale in the refuge to be held as early as next year. The tax-overhaul bill passed by the U.S. Congress last December includes a provision mandating two oil lease sales, each offering at least 400,000 acres (161,874.26 hectares), within seven years.
The 19-million-acre (7.7 million-hectare) Arctic refuge, the largest in the U.S. national wildlife refuge system, contains some of the wildest territory in North America. There are no roads, established trails or buildings of any type within the refuge border, and no cell phone service, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
"This is a true wilderness Refuge," the Arctic refuge website....
...Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift, in an email, said the $4 million "will be used to support six projects designed to improve and construct existing outbuildings, facilities and research operations."
That work will include improvements to facilities located outside the refuge, in the Inupiat village of Kaktovik and at Galbraith Lake along the Trans Alaska Pipeline corridor, she said in the email.
The $4 million appropriation for Arctic refuge projects is one of the largest single items in a total of $50 million in planned DOI construction spending....
