The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge gets all the publicity, but there's another arctic area that is host to a dense and diverse variety of vulnerable wildlife. This is the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a most unfortunate name. The heart of the wildlife habitat is a mosaic of lakes and wetlands surrounding a large waterbody known as Teshekpuk Lake.

Save a Little?

Moves to open the reserve to oil and gas development commenced in the 1980s, but even in the Reagan Administration, the most sensitive areas around Teshekpuk Lake were put off limits to protect caribou, birds, fish and other wildlife. In the late 1990s, while a new leasing program was initiated, the protected area around Teshekpuk Lake was expanded. Then came the Bush administration, which offered the entire planning area to the oil companies. Environmental groups sued, represented by Earthjustice.

To the Rescue

Near the end of September 2006, just two days before a lease sale was scheduled to be held, a federal judge issued an injunction that protects the lake and 400,000 acres surrounding it. The judge agreed with the groups that the government had violated federal law in refusing to consider the overall impact of the massive drilling that is contemplated and failed to fully analyze the impact on the threatened spectacled and Seller's eiders.

Updated: October 16, 2006