Taktuk's email regarding Interior's decision to allow Shell Oil to drill exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 10:30PM ;)
Please note: My regular daily post, including the final installment of Kalib Moves Out, will still appear Thursday, just a little later than normal. It is scheduled to come up at 10:00 AM.
Long time readers will remember Taktuk - Roberta Ahmaogak of Wainwright and her daughter, Cara, from when they danced at Kivgiq this past February.
On Monday, the US Interior Department announced it's decision to allow Shell Oil to drill three exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea, which, to Taktuk, her family and community, is the garden that feeds them.
See that flag flying behind her?
That is the flag of Iceberg 14, the bowhead whaling grew started by her grandfather - her Aapa - the late Ben Ahmaogak, Sr. - the whaling captain who, in 1995, took me in and made me part of his crew and family. This year, due to poor weather and ice conditions, this was the only flag to be raised over a bowhead in Wainwright during the entire whaling season.
I took this photo shortly before midnight on June 27, towards the end of the whale feast that Iceberg 14 hosted that day.
Yesterday, I received an email from Taktuk that she sent to a number of people, asking all to pass it on, so that's what I'm doing.
In the Anchorage Daily News, Senator Lisa Murkowsi, top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said this about the decision to allow Shell to drill:
"This is progress... an encouraging sign that Alaska's oil and natural gas resources can continue to play a major role in America's energy security."
This is what Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was quoted as saying:
"Our approval of Shell's plan is conditioned on close monitoring of Shell's activities to ensure that they are conducted in a safe and environmentally responsible manner. These wells will allow the department to develop additional information and to evaluate the feasibility of future development in the Chukchi Sea."
This is the quote from Marilyn Heiman, the U.S. Arctic program director for the Pew Environment Group:
"Obviously we're disappointed. A spill could happen from an exploratory well just as easily as it could from a production well. They have not yet demonstrated they have the ability and the expertise to clean up an oil spill, especially in the darkness, the extreme weather and the icy conditions."
According to the Daily News, "Shell Alaska Vice President Pete Slaiby said that company executives believe their exploration plan addresses concerns they've heard in North Slope communities, 'including concerns around program footprint and pace. Shell believes the Chukchi Sea could be home to some of the most prolific, undiscovered hydrocarbon basins in North America.'"
To me personally, none of the above voices mean anything. The one voice that matters to me is that of the Iñupiat, because the Chukchi Sea is their home, their dinner table, their life. Their culture is thousands of years old and it was shaped by this sea. No development should take place in this sea without their consent.
But that is not how the power structure works.
It should also be noted that, right now, a difficult cleanup operation is ongoing for a "one of the worst" onshore oil spills at Prudhoe Bay. If it can happen onshore, it can happen offshore. Given enough development, enough time, it even seems inevitable. What happens when that oil spills, not onto frozen tundra but into the ocean, with the bowhead whales, the beluga, the polar bear, walrus, the big bearded seal and the small spotted seal, the eider ducks, the murres and all the seabirds?
Here is Taktuk's email, which she titled,
Pray for Our People
OK- So if you're a maktak eater, whale steak lover, paniqtaq lover, if you sew beautiful skins to make beautiful jackets or boots, an artist who scrimshaws on ivory of the walrus, if you eat urraq, fish, go duck hunting during the spring, if you eat that beautiful taste of nanuq meat.... Keep this message going!
WE ARE INUPIAQ! We hunt for a living and for a lifestyle! This is our culture, and this is who we are. We hunt and we survive, this is what makes WHO WE ARE!
Who is Shell? Who WAS Shell? Do they have ears? Why us? Why our people? Why THIS precious culture?
To the people who work for Shell: If it were possible for you to live with us on a daily basis, go to work, make a living, go out hunting to feed your family, think like us, eat like us, live with us for an entire year- YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND WHY THIS HURTS US SO MUCH!!! But you can't understand, and you will never understand! You think that a brand new snowmachine every winter will fix our problems, a brand new truck will keep us above the snow banks, a new boat with a faster engine!!! You're WRONG! We can fix our broken snowmachines! We can pull you out within minutes! Our camping grounds aren't going anywhere and we'll make it to our camping grounds safely!
Spending money is so easy! Making people happy, you think? Read your numbers! Money kills! Money destroys!
We love our quiet village. We love sobriety! We are ALL Inupiaq! Soon there'll be MORE Inupiaq teachers in our schools!
Who's with Shell? Tell me what goods will come out of it! How many spotters will you pay? How many marine mammal observers will you have to look at their changing migration routes? Give me your plan! I want to see what's going out in our view!
What you're doing to us is Murder! My culture, my people has no choice but to face you! Don't you get enough bad looks?
Put your money into wind turbines for the whole nation, make energy efficent vehicles that work in the sub-zero temperatures...
Put your money into something that doesn't spell SPILL or DISASTER!
Why us? What power don't you see that's within our communities? What can we do to STOP you besides holding hands, forming a line with posters "OVER MY DEAD BODY!", or driving us to jail!?!? You're walking all over us. You look down at us. You're higher than us.
We know there is OIL out there. Why can't you simply put a stop to this? Simply, help our culture by keeping off "OUR" land and sea! It is rightfully ours because we hunt the sea animals and sea mammals. Forget the federal lands and oceans. Think about this culture that you're trying to kill!
Read it again and again and again.
What will happen if there happens to be an oil spill? What precautions will we see? What happens to the mammals of our sea? Die? How will you stop the oil spill? What happens to our next generation? Would they continue to hunt in our ancestors routes?
Don't tell me, "We'll do our best!"
- My name is Taktuk, and I'm a student at UAA (University of Alaska, Anchorage), a resident of Wainwright, Alaska, lover of all sea mammals!
Feed me, not your kind words nor your answers.
Listen to 1 more person! 1 can make a difference!
Another reminder: Our only option now is to say a prayer- to keep them at bay!
Reader Comments (2)
We have well drilling going on right now in the National Forest. The powers always claim to 'monitor the operation closely'. They don't. It's just words. The drilling is sloppy, the brine pumped into the rivers, the ground torn up. You want to know how I know this for a fact? We're related to drillers. We know how it goes. The almighty buck wins. Always.
Do you want to make a difference? Then decrease our usage of the product. Do you realize that we use 35 million gal. of oil per year to produce those plastic shopping bags (in the US alone) ? Everyone who wants to make a difference, get yourself some cloth bags and refuse to take the plastic bags. We could make a huge difference...and never even change our driving habits. (https://www.generalcode.com/free1.html)
Good article Bill.
Thank you, Debby. I think of your words every day after I buy my coffee, then drink it as I drive my car where I don't need to go, but like to go while listening to the news.