Issue Position: Responsible resource development

Issue Position

Alaska's resources can be developed without harming the evironment.

If a company is going to refine oil, manufacture a chemical or extract a resource, it should be done with a near zero impact to fish, wildlife, water, air or the environment. The process technology and risk management plans should be designed to prevent any worst case scenario. For instance the North Pole refinery - how expensive would it have been to excavate down 50 feet and put down a membrane, install monitoring wells, fill in the hole and then build the refinery. People at the time might have thought this was crazy talk. In retrospect this would have been a pretty good idea. Sulfolane is the chemical that leaked and is used as a catalyst in refining oil products. I wonder why nobody realized that it was leaking. I'm sure there is a ratio between the amount of Sulfolane used and the product produced.

Our society depends on petrochemical products to survive. I know this process technology can be performed safely and not pollute the environment. What it boils down to is money; you could have excavated a really big hole for the 40 to 70 million spent on the remediation and by the way it will never be cleaned up. People say accidents happen; no accidents are caused by not following risk and maintenance plans.

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