25th anniversary of the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.: the trans-Alaska oil pipeline cost $8 billion and runs 800 miles across some of the roughest terrain known to man.

• Author: Campbell, Melissa

The task had never been done before, nor since...

String a 48-inch diameter steel pipe 800 miles from the top of the world in Prudhoe Bay to the world's northernmost ice-free port in Valdez-around mountains, through rivers and across about a dozen distinct, challenging geological regions.

The Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. was formed to design, build and operate this trans-Alaska oil pipeline; to ensure the oil flowed smoothly and within a reasonable budget. This year, Alyeska celebrates 25 years of managing the transportation of oil through the pipeline.

Alyeska is a consortium of six oil companies: BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., ExxonMobil Alaska, Amerada Hess, Phillips Alaska, Williams Alaska and Unocal.

It took nearly a decade from the time oil was discovered on March 13, 1968, until it flowed into Valdez on June 20, 1977. The oil companies decided in October 1968 to build the pipeline, and the first pipe arrived late the next year. All but about one-sixth of the 800 miles would be buried underground, initial plans said.

"Everyone thought it would be pretty straightforward," said Elden Johnson, who helped design and build the pipeline and is currently the head of Alyeska's systems integration engineering department. "When oil was discovered, the companies bought the pipe and at that time hadn't really thought much about the design. But we were doing something for the very first time. It was like going to the moon: you don't know what you're going to encounter."

It was a tumultuous lime in the world. In 1968, both Sen. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated. A liberal mood in the country was evolving rapidly, giving new life to the civil rights movement and new strength to protests against the Vietnam War. That mood also invigorated the environmentalist movement, which would clash eventually head on with efforts to pump oil out of U.S. soil.

Alaska had been working to settle claims to land it had been promised from the federal government at the time of statehood. One of the first sites chosen was in Prudhoe Bay, an area where oil seepages had been seen for years and an area the state believed could yield profitable land leases.

But U.S. Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall ruled that Alaska Natives had claim to traditional lands-some of which the state claimed-and halted the state's land selection process. The pipeline wouldn't happen until Native land claims were settled.

"The Native claims were a big hurdle to get through," said Jack Roderick, former Alyeska consultant and author of "Crude Dreams: A Personal History of Oil and Politics in Alaska." "Then environmental groups filed lawsuits. It took an act of Congress to resolve that issue."

Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969. Debates over the act raised questions about whether drilling should even be allowed on the North Slope, Roderick said.

In the meantime, Alaskan oil workers were struggling. Little exploration was being...