The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Hunter.
Ms. Miller?

STATEMENT OF DEBBIE MILLER, FAIRBANKS, AK

Ms. MILLER. Well, I have to agree, first off, with Celia's comments. This is the foremost wilderness in America for those of you who haven't had the opportunity to see it.

I have lived in Alaska for 12 years now. I taught in a small village on the southern boundary of the refuge, Arctic Village, and had the opportunity to spend most of my summers from 1975 to 1979 backpacking, kayaking, climbing the highest glaciated peaks in the Brooks Range within the Arctic Refuge. And I have crossed the coastal plain numerous times. This summer I took my one year old daughter onto the coastal plain. We stood out there camping amongst the mosquitoes, and we were able to witness the aggregation of 20,000 to 30,000 caribou walking by our camp. We had a wolf that walked right next to my camp that my daughter spoke with. We had a wolverine come into our camp. There are grizzly bears all over the place, musk oxen.

This place has the richest and the most diverse species of arctic species that is currently in a conservation area. It is the only place where an American can go into a complete arctic ecosystem and see these kind of wildlife spectacles.

Assistant Secretary Bill Horn spoke the other day and said there is nothing unique about the coastal plain. If you were to take a one square foot patch of tundra and compare that one square foot patch of tundra on the coastal plain of the refuge with something over in the naval petroleum reserve, he's absolutely right. There's really probably not that much difference. We probably would find the same lichens, the same mosses, et cetera. And as he mentioned, there was one rare plant that was found on the coastal plain of the refuge. But that's all he could come up with.

Well, I guess I'm here to try to enlighten you that, number one, the coastal plain is unique. It is a part of the total ecosystem, total arctic ecosystem, and to remove it from that ecosystem is like removing Yosemite Valley from Yosemite National Park. It's like taking the torch off the Statue of Liberty for New Yorkers and saying that that statue is still going to be the same. It simply is not. You can't remove the most biologically productive zone of a refuge, and say that it is going to be the same. This is where the wildlife go to bear their young. It is the mecca for wildlife whether you are talking 180,000 caribou, whether you are talking 500 musk oxen, whether you are talking 300,000 snow geese that stage there. This is a vitally important area, a vitally important ecosystem for our country and the world. And you have to recognize it before you can begin to consider such an unacceptable bill.

I'm sorry, Senator Murkowski. Your bill is unacceptable. It is a black and white issue.

We have made a compromise on the north slope way back in the 1940s, unfortunately, and the 1950s. We have a national petroleum reserve which unfortunately proved to be fairly dry with its 18 to 20 wells which were drilled. However, I will mention that there is 6 billion barrels of oil in the NPRA. They are considered marginal

fields. Yet, they do lie near the Coleville River and from my conversations with people within the national petroleum reserve, even those marginal fields may prove to be recoverable as the price of oil goes up. Everything is dictated by the price of oil.

Within the Prudhoe Bay area, we have the Kuparuk field, the second largest petroleum field in the United States. Nobody knew that field was going to be discovered after Prudhoe Bay. We just happened upon it.

We have Milne Point that is shut down that is not in production because the price of oil is too low. We are talking about multinational oil, oil that may potentially be transported to Korea, to Canada. I mean, this national security argument is bogus.

There is no sense. There is no justification for going into our only arctic refuge for 3 to 4 billion barrels of oil or even more when we have 20 billion barrels of oil sitting in the West Sak Formation. ARCO has reported after their two year pilot test program that, oh, yes, we can get that oil out by conventional means. That was an unknown before. For years we were told, oh, we can't get the 20 billion barrels out. It's in a sandy formation. It's heavy crude. We need shovels to get it out. Well, they had a test pilot project that was reported in the Alaska Reporter that stated that they can get that oil out by conventional means once the price of oil goes up and its economically profitable for the corporations, obviously.

So, how can we justify going into a refuge? We don't know what is there, and we know there is 20 billion sitting next to Prudhoe Bay. That is larger than what is estimated in the Prudhoe Bay reserve. Why don't we hear about this? The industry doesn't want to talk about it. They want access to the entire north slope.

Second, nobody has brought this to light. Please take note of this, staff. I am disappointed there are only two Senators here. I'm glad the Chair made it back. I appreciate you coming back otherwise I would have only had you in the elevator for two minutes. Please take note of this.

The State of Alaska every year releases a five year oil and gas leasing plan. In that plan that was released January 1986-it will come out again in January 1987-there are 13.5 million acres of onshore prospects near Prudhoe Bay that may be proposed for lease sales, that have been identified. Now, we are talking lease tracts that have moderate potential, classified as moderate potential: the Kuparuk River unit, the north slope foothills. I urge you to review this report to get a sense of what kind of development we are talking about on the north slope.

This is a black and white issue, but for good reason. We have made a compromise. We have a commercial zone, if you will, on the north slope. We have a 900 square mile zone of development on the north slope. We have our green belt, if you will, within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and we have a purpose for keeping that green because we have got all the development to the west. Let's be fair. As Americans we want balanced resource development. We don't want to lock it all up. I mean, that's ridiculous. I drive a car and so do you.

But this is a myth that there are no other options for oil development in this country other than the Arctic Refuge. It is a drop in the world bucket of oil-a drop. And 4 to 6-or whatever it is-$2

billion to $4 billion in lease sales is a drop in the Federal deficit whether you are talking trade deficit or whether you are talking Federal deficit. It's a drop.

And if that is what this issue is all about-money-I am really sorry to be speaking to this committee because you have to be responsible. You have to look at why we have wildlife refuges in the first place.

And I would like to say that Senator Murkowski's bill is basically based on a very false assumption when he says that in 1988 we are going to have this horrible decline, that there is no oil around Prudhoe Bay when we have got all these producing fields that are just starting on line. Endicott, by the way, just opened up last week. There's a 3 billion barrel field I understand. It just opened last week. And it is not marginally anymore because the price of oil went up a few dollars, and now it is economical to recover it. And so, they have opened 100 wells pumping their way onto manmade islands. That's an off-shore find 15 miles off of Prudhoe Bay. This comment that the oil industry will only impact 1 percent of the coastal plain-I will say that's a very strong, strong argument on their behalf-1 percent, the 11 square mile footprint. There's a problem with that. If you take a box of Leggos, if any of you have kids, and you build your Leggos on the rug in the living room, your nice carpet floor, you have a lot of carpet left on that floor, but it doesn't quite look the same, does it? And if you try to walk to the kitchen from the living room, you are going to trip. [Laughter.]

So, I mean, think about it. Sure you have got an 11 square mile footprint of gravel. That's not much when you are talking 1.5 million acres, but you have got to imagine. We are talking about 380 miles of roads. We've got pipelines, production facilities, causeways going out off-shore.

And I have stood on top of one of the highest peaks within the refuge-highest glaciated peaks-and I can see the Arctic Ocean from that peak. I can look out across the coastal plain. I can see Dall's sheep below me. I can look out there and imagine caribou. With binoculars I might even be able to see those caribou. And if you put the Prudhoe Bay infrastructure on that coastal plain, you not only destroy the coastal plain, you destroy the entire wilderness value of the 19 million acre refuge. There is no doubt about it. Believe me.

And there may be only a few people that have the opportunity to go into that place, but a lot of people have a dream to go there. I read about Antarctica. I am glad it exists, and I don't want to see it-I'll probably never go there. And I don't want to see it developed. And we have a dream in America that wildness exists on our planet, and we have got to keep that dream.

Finally, I do want to submit one thing for the record because I don't want to take too much of the Chair's time. You probably have other things to do like vote on amendments on the floor. There is one serious problem that has not been addressed and this involves Senator Murkowski's bill. And this is the compelling evidence that he refers to about wonderful development at Prudhoe Bay.

Please keep in mind the facts. We have 18 years of development at Prudhoe Bay-18 years. The State of Alaska-these are State

leased lands. The State of Alaska has been in charge of monitoring those lands. For years, while I was living in Fairbanks, there was one man within the Department of Environmental Conservation that was responsible for monitoring every oil spill north of the Alaska Range. Now, I can't give you an exact acreage of how much land that was, but it is probably at least the size of what, Celia? Maine, or more?

Ms. HUNTER. More.

Ms. MILLER. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont. We are talking an incredible amount of acreage. One man.

The State of Alaska only recently began to monitor Prudhoe Bay in 1982 I believe. And that wasn't even on a regular basis.

This summer U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began the first study on the effects of contaminants from drilling muds on birds-the first study. We have 18 years of development, and we are just now looking at what those heavy metals and hydrocarbons are doing to our waterfowl. And we have got 2 million birds that migrate to the refuge to have their young, and we are saying that Prudhoe Bay has a clean record, and we don't even know.

I called EPA yesterday after listening to Mr. Herrera say, oh, that we only have a trace of heavy metals in the drilling mud, and we have gotten rid of the chromium, and we really have nothing to worry about. Well, true, Mr. Herrera, they are using less chromium in the drilling mud. Yes, we will grant you that.

But I would like to submit for the record a report that is in press, that will go to publication, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report. It was given to me before I got on the plane without an FOIA, which in many cases that is what you have to do to get anything out of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This report, "Effects a Prudhoe Bay Reserve Pit on Water Quality and Microinvertebrates of Arctic Tundra Ponds in Alaska"-it's a long report.

In summary, I think Lisa Speer has already indicated in her testimony that there are some concerns about drilling muds. Reserve pits are not going to go away. The solid waste rigs in Alaska, which the industry spoke of-they have nothing in there that mandates reinjection.

We have reserve pits. We will continue to have reserve pits. They may or may not leak. They will continue-the way the regs are written now, they will be allowed to discharge certain amounts from these pits.

And Mr. Chairman, if I am going over time, please let me know. But as long as I have traveled all the way from Alaska with my one year old, I feel like I need to explain these things to you since nobody has brought it to light it seems like, at least in the manner that I feel.

I will list in this report the elements that were found in 21 sample ponds around Prudhoe Bay in 1983: chromium, barium, which clogs fish gills, by the way, arsenic, zinc, nickel-I can't pronounce it—aliphatic hydrocarbons which are supposed to be bad. I have no idea what they are. Copper, lead, cadmium. There are numerous heavy metals associated with drilling muds. Mr. Herrera said we have a little problem with chromium. And they seem to have figured that one out and taken that up. But we have other

metals that are associated with it, and hydrocarbons and oil spills, and the list goes on.

There has not been a study conducted by EPA or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that looks at the biocumulative effects of these hazards. There has been no money within EPA.

So, on that note I think I have brought some of the key issues that I feel the committee ought to look at before they consider passing such an unacceptable bill.

And I would be happy to answer any questions, and I guess we would turn this over to David at this point.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Miller follows:]