The time is now for LNG: gas line wranglers saddle up for another go-round.

• Author: Gallion, Mari
• Position: OIL & GAS

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On the wall of the Alaska State Capital building in Juneau hangs the front page of an Anchorage Times newspaper whose headline reads, "Farewell, Mr. Alaska: Bill Eagan dies." On the lower right hand corner of the page appears a much smaller headline: "Gas line firm seeks clearances."

The article goes on to detail how one Anchorage-based company had filed a request with the federal government for a right-of-way over federal land, and had submitted the required applications to the Bureau of Land Management to build a pipeline for Alaska natural gas. The article continues with details about the proposed route, size of pipeline (36inch), cost of building the pipeline (estimated at $14.3 billion, including inflation and finance charges), and plans to sell the gas to Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The newspaper is dated May 7, 1984. Twenty-eight years later, on Sept. 13, the first day of the Alaska LNG Summit in Valdez--a conference focused on harnessing Alaska gas for domestic use, economic growth and global opportunities--a panel that includes the mayors of several Alaska towns discusses the critical need for natural gas in rural Alaska.

According to Kathie Wasserman, executive director of the Alaska Municipal League, rural Alaskans spend up to 47 percent of their incomes on heating alone. The current heating options of wood and diesel are expensive and scarce.

Bethel Mayor Dr. Joseph Klejka talks about how monthly heating bills of $500 (and up to $800 for some) are common in Bethel. As a result, multiple families are crowding together--literally shoulder to shoulder--into smaller houses in order to stay warm.

Unalaska Mayor Shirley Marquardt adds that families that have lived in Western Alaska for generations-families who wish to stay in their towns--are moving to communities like Wasilla where they have a chance to live a life not consumed with the price of staying warm.

According to Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright, this exodus to these population centers creates a different kind of overcrowding problem in that these communities do not have infrastructure to handle the population boom.

One would think that Alaska, the richest (in natural resources), largest and most sparsely populated state in the U.S. would be able to avoid these problems of overcrowding--yet Alaska has residential overcrowding in its larger communities as well as its rural areas, largely because of the price of heating.

To add more fuel to the proverbial fire...