Prudhoe bay oil discovery expedited ANCSA: pipeline required settlement of land claims.

• Author: Orr, Vanessa
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: ANCSA 40th ANNIVERSARY

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For more than 30 years, the trans-Alaska oil pipeline has been a part of the Last Frontier's landscape. But it wasn't until a diverse group of people, including Alaska Natives, oil companies, environmentalists and business owners all compromised that the project could come to pass.

In an almost perfect storm of events, a number of complex and contentious issues were resolved in order for the $8 billion project to happen. Opened in June of 1977, the pipeline today transports approximately 11 percent of the nation's domestic oil production across 800 miles of tundra, mountains and rivers from the North Slope to Valdez--a route almost as rugged as its path to fruition.

According to a timeline established by the PBS series, American Experience: The Alaska Pipeline, in 1966, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall imposed a land freeze in Alaska prohibiting the federal government from giving the State of Alaska land titles as agreed under the Statehood Act. The federal government had already given out provisional titles to 12 million acres, including Prudhoe Bay, where a massive oil field was later discovered. The freeze was put in place to allow Alaska Natives time to settle outstanding land claims.

"When Secretary Udall 'froze' the land, it resulted in a freeze on rights-of-way, which meant the pipeline could not go forward," explained Jack Roderick, an attorney who worked with the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. during the time of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and author of the book, "Crude Dreams: A Personal History of Oil & Politics in Alaska."

"One of the conditions was that the freeze wouldn't be lifted until the land claims were settled, so Congress had to act on the claims, or permits wouldn't be issued and the pipeline couldn't proceed."

CREATING TAPS

The companies that discovered the Prudhoe Bay oil field--Atlantic Richfield Co. and Humble Oil and Refining Co. (now Exxon)--joined with British Petroleum (now BP) to form the trans-Alaska oil pipeline in the hopes of moving the project forward. In 1969, they announced plans to build the pipeline underground, and filed for federal right-of-way permits.

"One of the interesting things at that time was that some of the oil executives weren't even aware of the issues facing them--it came as quite a surprise," said Roderick. In his book, he shares the story of oil lobbyist Hugh Gallagher who, in 1969, asked Clive Hardcastle, the young president of BP North America, how...