Senator GRAVEL. Our next item of testimony will be that of Mr. William Green who is the chairman of the Aviation Committee of the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce. His statement will be accepted for the record.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM GREEN, CHAIRMAN, GREATER FAIRBANKS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

My name is William Green. I am Chairman of the Aviation Committee of the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce. I have been associated with air transportation either directly or indirectly in Alaska since my arrival in Fairbanks as an employee of Pan American Airways twenty-four years ago. I was employed by Pan American for two years, both in accounting and in traffic. I joined Northern Consolidated Airlines prior to the time President Truman signed the order authorizing consolidation of the seven Alaska carriers in the consolidation, and worked for Consolidated in the capacity of Division Accountant, and later Division Manager in charge of accounting and statistics, maintenance. traffic and operations. Subsequent to employment with Northern Consolidated, I became General Traffic Manager for Wien Airlines. For the past nine years I have been employed by Alaska National Bank of Fairbanks, currently as Vice President-Comptroller.

On April 15, 1970, the City of Fairbanks, Fairbanks North Star Borough, and Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce, Inc., the "Fairbanks Civic Parties," submitted to the Civil Aeronautics Board direct evidence and testimony in a case presently pending before the Board entitled the Alaska Service Investigation (C.A.B. Docket 20826), styled by the Board as a comprehensive review of intra-Alaska air service and route patterns. I participated in the preparation of Fairbanks' case and gave direct testimony, identified as FAI-T-6 in the Fairbanks materials. I am providing these subcommittees with copies of our testimony and direct exhibits in that case.

Of course it is not our wish that the Congress or any Senator intervene in any way in the CAB proceeding. Such a resquest and such intervention would be quite improper as you all know. We rather hope to point to an area exclusively within the jurisdiction of Congress-the amounts of funds appropriated to subsidies to CAB-certificated carriers.

Much of the record in the Alaska Service Investigation includes matters relating to adequacy of air service provided to Alaska's outlying towns and “bush” villages from her hub cities. The lineal descendants of the famous Alaska bush lines of yesteryear-among them Alaska Airlines, Wien Consolidated Airlines and Reeve Aleutian Airways-still attempt to provide increasingly reliable and regular service to remote areas that can in no measure justify such service through free-market economics. Yet these same airlines are also constantly upgrading their service between Alaska's major cities through improvements that are very costly in original outlay, principally involving jet aircraft.

The intra-Alaska line that provides most of the "bush" service from Fairbanks to the Arctic and Interior is Wien Consolidated Airlines. The President of Wien, Mr. Raymond I. Petersen, testified at the Fairbanks hearing of the Alaska Service Investigation that "[W]ithout subsidy paid out of the Federal Treasury from taxes gathered from the citizens of all of the 50 State, our operations would be unprofitable and we would be forced to curtail our operations and serve only the profitable routes and abandon the unprofitable routes, which would probably involve 90% of the points served by Wien Consolidated."

Upon cross-examination by the attorneys for other parties in the CAB case. Petersen explained that many improvements in Wien's bush service sought by community representatives from thoughout rural Alaska could not be provided without increased subsidies. Upon direct questioning by the CAB Examiner Petersen stated that there is a "direct relationship" between Wien's ability to provide adequate air service in Alaska's bush, and the amount of subsidy Wien receives annually from the federal government. I worked for fifteen years with Alaskan airlines in accounting, economic planning and traffic, and I have myself written schedules into points where any service was at a loss and strictly dependent upon federal subsidy.

These Committees should carefully note the major difference between rural air service elsewhere in the U.S. and in Alaska. In Alaska we are not asking that Congress continue to subsidize a competing transportation facility, which parallels slower surface transportation, for the luxury and convenience of hurried businessmen, which is the case of most of the small "feeder" lines in the Lower 48. Rather, we are asking for the maintenance and improvement of an essential transportation link. Air service is the lifeline of our Alaskan bush :

there are no railroads or roads to most of our villages and towns. Before the airplane conquered Alaska the major modes of transportation to these areas were by water in summer and dogsled in winter. By now all of rural Alaska has evolved with the air industry. The smaller towns and villages cannot survive without continued air service, and cannot grow without improved air service. Yet it will be decades—if ever-before rural Alaska economically can justify the service it needs on a free market basis. The carriers that provide the service, no matter what their public-service traditions and good intentions may suggest, are also in business to make profits in highly competitive markets with costly jet equipment.

We feel that Congress must strengthen this rural lifeline if Alaska is to grow. In behalf of the greater Fairbanks area and, I believe, all of northern and interior Alaska, I ask that Congress continue its policies on subsidization of CAB-certificated carriers and increase the amount of subsidy available to Alaskan air carriers.

Senator GRAVEL. Then the testimony of Mr. Robert B. Weeden. Mr. Weeden's statement will be accepted for the record.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT OF ROBERT B. WEEDEN, PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,
UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA

My name is Robert B. Weeden. I live in Fairbanks, Alaska and am a professor in biological science at the University of Alaska. As a person active in Alaskan conservation groups since 1959, and as a recent fulltime representative for three Alaska conservation groups, I have been invited to present the viewpoint of environmentally-concerned Alaskans on the Trans Alaska Pipeline proposal. While I cannot pretend that my remarks represent the range of views on this issue among conservationists, I believe they accurately portray the consensus. I do not, of course, speak for the University of Alaska.

Alaskan conservationists have thought long and hard about this issue. They realize the broad economic and social, as well as environmental, implications of the project. Their view-and mine-is that of people who make their living here, and whose life styles have been and will be changed by the fact of arctice oil. As members of the two Senate committees know, the debate about the Prudhoe Bay-Valdez pipeline is in reality a debate about management of northern lands and utilization and conservation of national energy sources. In this testimony I try to go several levels beyond the narrow limits of the TAPS pipeline, but I stop short of discussing the two overall issues that are involved. My main topics are alternate methods for transporting North Slope oil to markets, environmental aspects of pipelines and tankers as alternative carriers, and the general public's interest in a solid and careful approach to environmental problems surrounding the TAPS proposal.

1. There has not been adequate presentation to the public of alternative means of transporting oil from Prudhoe Bay to markets. Presumably industry and some government agencies have studied this question, but no definitive summaries or reports are available.

The current emphasis on the TAPS project is to be understood as a decision by members of the consortium that their interest would be best served by that project. These interests include such factors as earliest possible date for volume production (as a return on massive investments in exploration, leasing, and drilling), existence of marketing systems and markets on the west coast and elsewhere, economic impacts within the industry, if Alaskan production displaces other domestic production, etc. Considerations involving public good, as opposed to corporate good, are peripheral or insignificant in this decision. For example, the alleged benefits to Alaska of having the construction of the oil transport system take place on its soil (rather than the shipyards in other states, or in Canada) are of little economic significance to the industry. Likewe, environmental considerations are strictly peripheral in industry's view except as they bear on engineering problems or public relations.

This is not meant as a criticism. It simply indicates that only the public can look out for its own interests. If we are sincere in our dedication to the idea of minimizing environmental despoliation, then all Americans have a strong interest in planning the extraction and transportation of fossil fuels out of the north so that the fewest environmental risks are taken, the least damage done.

Common sense demands that as a first step in minimizing risks, the governments of Canada and United States must try to weigh all reasonable strategies for northern petroleum reserve development, and for getting oil and gas to markets. Environmental considerations should be among the important elements of this evaluation.

Oil and gas are public property until the rights to extract them are bought. Even then, the public does not abdicate all interest or control. In addition the public owns or controls the substrate over which arctic oil must be transported— the ocean and federal and state lands. There is not doubt about the responsibility of governments to take initiative in planning the development of these resources. 2. The reasonable alternatives for moving North Slope oil to markets include at least the following:

(a) The TAPS proposal, Prudhoe to Valdez, with tankers carrying oil to the west coast and possibly a west-to-east pipeline carrying crude oil to mid-continent or eastern market areas from Puget Sound;

(b) A trans Alaska system from Prudhoe to Cook Inlet, with tanker shipment to the west coast;

(c) A Prudhoe-Inuvik-Edmonton pipeline, traversing the Arctic Wildlife Range, with bifurcations at Edmonton to western and mid-continent marketing points;

(d) Same, without traversing the Arctic Wildlife Range;

(e) Prudhoe Bay via pipe to a deep water port in the Arctic Ocean, then by tanker via Northwest Passage to the east coast;

(f) Submarine transportation.

3. From the public's viewpoint, the commitment of capital by the TAPS consortium in no way obligates governments to promote or permit this particular transportation alternative. The investment does, of course, carry with it a forceful political argument, but this is apart from the question whether the TAPS route will serve the public best in the long run. Neither do the verbal promises by the Secretary of Interior, that a permit will be granted to TAPS, constitute a public obligation. (Again, they are a real political factor, if not a legal or moral one). Therefore, the public has a right to expect a comprehensive evaluation of alternatives before any future commitment to a single proposal.

4. In relation to any one of the various alternatives, a number of elements are important in an environmental evaluation:

(a) Environmental risks in constructing the carrier;

(b) Extent of continued landscape or biotic damage (other than from oil spills) during operation of the carrier;

(c) Likelihood of repeated damage if carrier capacity increased;

(d) Risk of spilling petroleum products;

(e) Extent of damage from spilled petroleum;

(f) Feasibility of cleaning up spilled oil;

(g) Feasibility of removing carrier when oil reserves are depleted or uneconomic.

Pipelines and tankers each have advantages and disadvantages from an environmental standpoint. The advantages of pipelines are that their safety record (in temperate areas) is better than that of tankers, in terms of the proportion of product spilled; oil spilled on land usually does less environmental damage than oil spilled in water, and sometimes can be cleaned up more readily. On the other hand, building pipelines causes more short-run and long-run disturbance and damage than building tankers; the damage is repeated if new lines have to be built along the same route to increase capacity. Constructing pipelines may necessitate building a road as well, with additional direct and indirect environmental losses. Finally, when the petroleum reserve plays out, the line cannot be removed without additional surface disturbance.

Tankers have a rather poor record of carrying oil products. This is due not only to the collisions that make headlines, but to frequent smaller spills stemming from negligence or faulty equipment, and to accepted practice in disposing of ballast water and wastes. When oil is spilled in marine environments it tends to cause obvious ecologic damage in a very short time, and less noticeable but perhaps more important chronic disruption of water communities. Technology for cleaning up marine oil spills presently is not satisfactory.

Tankers have the advantage of flexibility in expansion and reduction of volume carried. Doubling the number or size of tankers, for example, will increase pollution hazards in some proportion, but otherwise does not cause additional environmental disturbance.

If by improving tanker design (to eliminate oil in ballast discharge), reducing negligence, improving navigational and other safety systems, and developing adequate cleanup systems, the environmental damage from tanker traffic can be reduced to a small fraction of its present level, there will be a compelling argument for marine vs. overland shipment of arctic oil to distant markets.

The critical issue in that connection is the time frame for beginning arctic oil production. If it would take ten years longer to develop less risky transportation systems than to build a system according to present standards, who gains and who loses, and how much? Where does the public (as opposed to the corporate) interest lie?

5. The conclusion I reach from considering these factors is that boundaries of the debate on the TAPS proposal are not wide enough. The present governmental attitude seems to be that if TAPS can submit an acceptable design so that the integrity of the line is not in doubt, the construction permit will be granted.

The question of who to build the pipeline so the risk of rupture is acceptable is a serious one. Answers have not been found, although the parties involved seem to agree they will be found in the near future. My point is that this will tell us whether the Trans Alaska Pipeline can be built, but not whether it should be built. One is technologic possibility; the other is social desirability in relation to alternatives.

6. The questions of technologic feasibility now being raised over the TAPS proposal are of great importance because (a) any overland pipeline in the northern third of the continent would encounter similar problems, and (b) feeder lines collecting oil from wells in arctic regions also will pose comparable problems, regardless of whether the oil leaves Alaska by ship or pipe.

It is heartening to note the steady increase in effort both industry and government have directed toward defining and solving environmental problems. Thirteen months ago, when TAPS formally applied for a right-of-way permit for the Prudhoe-Valdez route, virtually no one questioned that adequate scientific and engineering knowledge supported the request for early construction. Now there are important questions being asked, the time schedule for project construction has been moved back at least one year, and many people are engaged in studies of soil characteristics, thawing of frozen ground, seismic stress areas, revegetation of disturbed soils, efforts on biologic communities, and so on. Without doubt, all arctic construction in the future will benefit from this work.

Is enough being done? That is a hard query to answer, because I do not know every research study being made. Perhaps a more pertintnt question is this: Are TAPS and the state and federal governments willing to wait for the answers that are needed? Industry seems to have accepted a year's delay-possibly twoto answer problems of soil stability. Will they wait twice that long to develop techniques for revegetation of disturbed ground?

7. It is commonly accepted that the Trans Alaska Pipeline will be the trigger for broadscale economic activity everywhere north of the Yukon River in Alaska, by providing a reason for building a permanent, public road through the heart of the region. Few people oppose this concept outright, but many of us are appalled at the primitive state or nonexistence of the regional planning which should precede construction of a major transport system.

The Department of the Interior has espoused the idea of a master conservation and development plan for northern Alaska, and the Department of Transportation is beginning a study of a north-south transportation corridor. These could be the foundation of a broadly beneficial, efficient, environmentallyrestrained development program-but only if they are not warped, wrenched, and rendered useless by de facto exploitation activities.

What so many fail to understand is the number of different people who have a personal stake in arctic Alaska. It is not only the people who now live there, although their voices seem often to be lost in the shuffle. It is not just the commercial community that can and should profit from resource use, although their voices do not dominate the halls of decision. It is not just Alaskans, although they rightly ask for their share of responsibility and benefits. It is not just the nation's environmentally-conscious millions, and the organized conservation groups that are their spokesmen. It is, in fact, all Americans. Participation in planning for arctic development must span the entire gamut of all interested people.

8. In summary, the main elements in the viewpoint of Alaskan conservationists on the proposed Trans Alaska Pipeline are these:

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