A Pipeline

While there were huge reserves of oil on the North Slope, they needed to be transported to markets to be of any economic value. With ice closing the Arctic Ocean to shipping for much of the year, oil companies considered several possibilities for how to transport the oil, including ice-breaker supertankers, giant planes with 500-foot wingspans, and 1,000-foot nuclear submarine tankers to go under the ice. With none of these proving to be feasible (an experimental trip of the ice-breaking tanker Manhattan ended in a large hole in its hull), oil companies determined a pipeline needed to be built across Alaska to transport the oil to an ice-free port on the Gulf of Alaska from which it could be shipped.

While a pipeline was decided as the best method to bring the oil to markets, difficult obstacles stood in the way of starting its construction. The first was the Alaska Native claims to the land the pipeline would have to cross. Several oil companies joined together to lobby Congress to address the issue of Native land claims to clear the way for the pipeline. In 1971, Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which finally resolved the long-standing issue of which land was owned by Alaskan Natives and opened the way for the pipeline to move forward.

A second obstacle was environmental protests against the idea of the pipeline. Even before Congress completed ANCSA, environmental groups sued to stop the project. They cited several concerns with the pipeline, including disrupting caribou migrations, streams and fish spawning grounds, and the potential of oil spills from tankers operating out of Valdez. A federal judge granted an injunction to stop construction. As the oil industry scrambled to produce a good plan, national leaders debated whether or not there should be a pipeline at all. Environmental concerns included the idea that Alaska, America's last wilderness, the country's last vast stretches of open land, should be preserved for future generations.

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