Never heard of Teshekpuk Lake? It is the largest lake on Alaska's North Slope, a pristine waterfowl treasure that today is threatened by oil and gas development.

Teshekpuk (pronounced teh-shek-puk) provides breeding and summering habitat for myriads of waterfowl that each autumn migrate across Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

The vast maze of lakes, wetlands, and rivers around Teshekpuk Lake is key to the continued survival and productivity of hundreds of thousands of ducks, geese and swans that nest, raise young and molt on Alaska’s Arctic Coastal Plain wetlands. The wetlands support:

• More than 225,000 pintails—nearly 10 percent of the North American population.

• More than 120,000 greater white-fronted geese—up to 20 percent of the mid- continent breeding population (Central and Mississippi flyways).

• Up to half of all Pacific Flyway brant.

• 10,000 eastern-population tundra swans (Central and Atlantic flyways).

• More than 100,000 old squaws.

• Four species of eiders, including the spectacled and Steller's that are listed as

“threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Importantly, this valuable Arctic wetland complex is not part of the national debate about whether to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge east of Prudhoe Bay and the Canning River. That argument focuses largely on caribou and wilderness values.

Teshekpuk is a separate issue over the proposed expansion of existing oil and gas development in the northeastern National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (the “Reserve”) that lies west of the Colville River and south of Barrow where more than 70 percent of the Arctic Coastal Plain wetlands are found. The proposed expansion includes the complex of wetlands around Teshekpuk Lake, especially to the north and east. This wetland complex bears directly on the health and diversity of our continental waterfowl flocks.

President Harding established the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska in 1923 as an energy reserve for the U.S. Navy. In 1976, Congress shifted management to the Department of the Interior and directed it to identify special areas in which exploration of the Reserve's petroleum reserves “shall be conducted in a manner which will assure the maximum protection of such surface values…”

The Carter Administration in 1977 designated three “special areas” in the Reserve, including one at Teshekpuk Lake and its surroundings. In 1983, the Reagan Administration advanced an oil and gas lease sale in the northeast Reserve but also established a core no-lease zone of more than 200,000 acres of wetland habitat north of the lake. In 1998, the Clinton Administration expanded this no-lease zone to nearly 600,000 acres, while opening 87 percent of the northeast Reserve to oil and gas leasing.

The oil industry took advantage of these openings and, to date, has 1.3 million acres under lease. There are commercial quantities of oil on some lease tracts, and the industry (ConocoPhillips) is now moving to develop those sites and send the oil to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline at Prudhoe Bay. This will be the first-ever commercial production of oil from the Reserve.

Why was the Teshekpuk Lake area was recognized and protected by three different presidents?

Besides its importance to nesting waterfowl, loons, and shorebirds, Teshekpuk Lake's wetlands each summer attract up to 90,000 molting geese. The total includes:

• Nearly 37,000 brant, approximately 30 percent of the entire Pacific Flyway population. Many of these molting geese arrive from distant sites in Canada, Siberia and the Yukon-Kuskokwin Delta.

• An estimated 35,000 greater white-fronted geese, drawn mostly from the mid-continent population. These geese are taken by hunters in the prairie and Gulf Coast states and in Mexico.

• Thousands of Canada and snow geese.

Geese are attracted to Teshekpuk because they prefer secure, remote sites for their annual molt, when energy demands are high and the birds are flightless. Molting geese are highly vulnerable to disturbance and may flee for deep water at the first sight of a human or predator. Moreover, research has demonstrated that low-flying aircraft are an especially serious problem for molting brant because the birds tend not to habituate to such disturbance.

An additional problem is that oilfields attract predators in the form of foxes, bears and gulls. The higher densities of predators, in turn, mean increased predation on nesting birds and their eggs and young in and around oil fields. (Birds nesting in and around oilfields may represent “sink” populations, meaning they require constant immigration to sustain their numbers, thus taxing or depleting larger regional populations.)

In 2003, in response to a mandate from President Bush's National Energy Task Force, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced it would consider opening the no-lease zone in the northeast Reserve to exploration and development. BLM stated it had conducted scientific studies on the biological resources of the area and information gained since the 1998 plan made it appropriate to consider revising it.

In January 2005, BLM then announced it plans to open 100 percent of the area north and east of Teshekpuk Lake to oil and gas leasing, effectively reversing nearly 30 years of protection.

The critical goose molting habitat—with its many deep lakes interspersed by wetlands with fine sedges and grasses—will be fragmented into seven lease tracts of 40,000-59,000 acres in size. Each tract ultimately may have its own oilfield infrastructure, including gravel pads, pipelines, airstrips, gravel mines, pump stations, processing facilities and the like.

Some areas will be designated as “no surface occupancy” zones to be accessed by directional drilling and other protective stipulations will be in place. One should take little solace in these mitigation steps, because BLM has been quick to bend such rules and has an abysmal track record of following through on its commitments.

The BLM received more than 215,000 public comments on its plan to open the Teshekpuk Lake area to oil and gas leasing, and nearly all were in opposition. Not surprisingly, national conservation organizations are among those opposed to opening the area around the lake to leasing, but those same organizations also acknowledged the need for expanded oil and gas activity in the Reserve.

The National Audubon Society, which is leading this fight, does not oppose all energy exploration in the Reserve. Instead, it emphasizes the need to protect biological “hotspots” in the Reserve, while leaving open for leasing much of the area with high oil and gas potential. In the northeast Reserve, Audubon favors keeping about 600,000 acres of the 4.6-million acre planning unit off limits to leasing.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Environmental Protection Agency, and Alaska’s North Slope Borough are on record in favor of leaving alone the area north and east of Teshekpuk Lake. The North Slope Borough wrote: “We are not aware of significant new wildlife or subsistence data, or industry technology that has been reported, discussed or validated since 1998 that would justify opening areas that are now closed to leasing….”

The California Waterfowl Association noted that “conservationists and scientists are concerned that greater oil and gas development in the Teshekpuk Lake area may result in reduced populations of brant, northern pintail, and white-fronted geese.” Ducks Unlimited's staff has extensive field knowledge of the northeast Reserve, and concluded that “the critical goose molting and staging area in the TLSA should not be offered for leasing.”

The Pacific Flyway Council, comprised of representatives of state and Canada’s provincial wildlife agencies, found that “throughout most of the planning processes over 20 years, analyses of potential impacts of oil and gas activity on molting geese have not been rigorous and have not recognized the results of a substantial body of relevant research on disturbance and energetics. The Council is particularly concerned about impacts that could accelerate declines in black brant (currently within 4,000 birds of a threshold established to restrict all hunting range-wide) or increase risks to the small population of WHA [Western High Arctic] brant.”

Finally, the Wildlife Management Institute determined that “geese, pintails, and tundra swans using this area move through the Central and Mississippi Flyways during the fall and provide highly valued opportunities for recreational hunting and wildlife viewing. The level at which these opportunities are able to continue in the future depends in part on the level of disturbance associated with oil and gas development in geese molting areas of the Northeast NPR-A because geese are vulnerable to disturbance by people and aircraft during their flightless, energy-demanding molt.”

No one doubts the United States needs access to additional domestic energy supplies, but BLM's attempt to open all of the area north of Teshekpuk Lake is a radical proposal that goes beyond what Congress intended. Moreover, the industry has been provided—and is already taking advantage of—access to millions of acres of petroleum-bearing land in the Reserve. The oil that underlies the Teshekpuk Lake area isn't going anywhere and could be tapped in the future, if it should prove necessary and safe to do so.

We already have destroyed millions of acres of critical waterfowl habitat in this country. Do we need to destroy more?

If you share my concern about the wetlands around Teshekpuk Lake and the waterfowl and other migratory birds that depend on them, please register your opposition. Click here to view a draft letter. Letters should be submitted by February 25, the end of the public comment period. Send your comments to:

NE NPA-A Amendment Planning Team

Bureau of Land Management

Alaska State Office

222 West 7th Avenue

Anchorage, AK 99513