Sierra Club Alaska Representative

Photo courtesy Northern Alaska Environmental Center Teshekpuk Lake is the biological heart of America's Western Arctic.

'While the battle over drilling the [arctic] refuge raged in Congress, the Bush Administration leased vast tracts of land to the west and offshore waters to the highest bidder.' - Joel K. Bourne, Jr., writing for the May 2006 issue of National Geographic magazine in the cover story, 'Selling Alaska's Frontier.'

In September 2006, the Bush Administration could auction off the first oil and gas leases to oil companies in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area of the Western Arctic.

Ignoring vocal opposition from Alaska Natives, scientists, and sportsmen, the Bush administration recently opened for leasing 100 percent of the internationally significant Teshekpuk Lake Special Area in the Northeast Planning Area of the National Petroleum Reserve- Alaska (NPRA). The decision eliminates long-established wildlife and environmental protections first put in place by Reagan Administration Interior Secretary James Watt.

The National Petroleum Reserve is the giant, 23 million-acre area (equal to nearly one quarter of the state of California!) in Alaska's western arctic (west of Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) that was set aside in the 1920s by President Warren Harding as an emergency source of oil for the Navy. Later, this, the nation's largest chunk of public land, was transferred to the Bureau of Land Management. The tremendous wildlife and wilderness resources of its 'Special Areas' are second to none, not even the morepublicized Refuge.

In 1977, Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus established the fragile wetlands surrounding Teshekpuk Lake as the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area. This designation meant that the wildlife, subsistence and cultural values must receive maximum protection under any future development scenario. Until recently, it was enough to protect this pristine place.

Besides being one of the most important and sensitive arctic wetland complexes in the Northern Hemisphere, the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area is home to the 45,000- head Teshekpuk Lake Caribou Herd, 60,000 molting geese a year, and the entire breeding population of Steller's eiders. Hundreds of species of birds migrate from six different continents in order to spend part of the year in Teshekpuk Lake.

The Bush administration has made clear its intention to turn the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area into a giant network of drilling platforms, gravel roads, airstrips and pipelines. Further, thanks to the 2005 Energy Policy Act, oil companies can be assured they will be heftily subsidized by taxpayer dollars to drill in places like the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area.

In response to a request for comments on whether to weaken T-Lake area protections, more than 215,000 citizens spoke out in opposition to opening more of the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area to oil leasing. The mayor of the North Slope Borough - the largest municipal government entity on Alaska's North Slope - spoke openly about the threat to Alaska Native communities' subsistence resources and cultural values - which are protected under the 1976 Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act. National sportsmen's groups, ornithologists and even members of Congress have voiced opposition to opening this part of Teshekpuk Lake.

Yet the Department of Interior dismissed these diverse voices and opened 100 percent of the area to oil and gas leasing.

The Bush Administration still has a chance to cancel its plans to offer the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area for oil leasing. Over 95% of Alaska's North Slope is already open for oil and gas exploration and development. With what little undisturbed territory is left, it is the federal government's duty to honor the concerns of its citizens and past leaders by keeping this area left untouched.

The first lease sale in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area is scheduled to occur on September 27, 2006. Please take a minute today to send a letter to the Department of the Interior, asking that the lease sale be cancelled.

TAKE ACTION!

SEND hand-written letters to the Secretary of the Interior via Sierra Club at: Save T-Lake! c/o Sierra Club AK Field Office 333 W. 4th Avenue, Suite 307, Anchorage, AK 99501, or fax: 907-258-6807 For more info contact: call 907-276-4044 or visit www.savetlake.org/.