American Notes ALASKA

As a site for huge potential oil reserves, Alaska's North Slope has long been a battleground between environmentalists and energy companies. Interior Secretary Donald Hodel renewed the debate last week by proposing that a section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be opened to drilling. He would permit exploration on 1.5 million acres of the 19-million-acre preserve, which could contain between 600 million and 9 billion bbl. of crude. Conservationists contend that drilling would disturb the region's delicate ecosystem for little reason: a strike, they claim, would add just 4% to U.S. oil reserves. Canada also objects to drilling, for fear that caribou migration patterns would be disrupted. Hodel observed that caribou populations in Prudhoe Bay, 100 miles to the west, are three times what they were before drilling began 19 years ago.