Fairbanks Daily News-Miner from Fairbanks, Alaska • Page 17

Fairbanks Daily Nam-Miner. Tuocfay, RESOURCE DEVELOP TAPS covets Pet Four, National Wildlife Range More oil needed to optunizeuse Russell Train, until recently U.S. undersecretary of Interior, teUi Task Force in Washington which traveled to the nation's capital but week, in no uncertain terms, how he eeb about the Trans Alaska Pipeline Syitem't proposal to bury most of 710-mle oil pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez underground (see accompanying story). U.S. Sen.

Ted Stevens, left, and Alaska Gov. Keith Miller, flank Train, now chairman of the President's Council on Environmental Quality. (StaffPhoto ByJoeLaRocca) ofitspipeline ByJOELaROCCA Resources Editor WASHINGTON, D.C.-JThe Trans A a a i i System's billion-dollar commitment to its proposed 48-inch oil line from Alaska's North Slope to Valdez was based on the assumption that the highly prospective acreage contained within Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4, the Arctic Wildlife Range and the offshore Arctic Ocean coast will be opened to commercial exploitation, a top Humble Oil executive disclosed here last week. M.A.

"Mike" Wright, Bumble's board chairman and chief executive officer, made this revelation in an impromptu talk to the Alaska Emergency Task Force during its two-day mission here. It was the first public announcement of specific industry designs on the former two areas, both presently restricted. Asserting that some estimates of North Slope oil reserves are highly (See TAPS COVETS, Page A-3) Inside this week's oil tab federal court judge in the nation's capital erred when he based his decision to issue an injunction against construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline on the assumption that Stevens Village Indians legally owned land along the proposed right-of-way, a U.S. Justice Department attorney charged in Washington, D.C. last week, Page A-3.

Our regular weekly feature, RESOURCES REVIEW, offers a comprehensive compilation of the past week's most significant news stones relating to oil and resource development in Alaska, Page A-4. Canada's swinging Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau sets his nation on a collision course with its powerful neighbor to he south, asserting Canadian sovereignty over arctic waters well beyond the internationally-recognized three-mile limit. Trudeau claims outright jurisdiction within a 12-mile limit, and anti-pollution control within a 100-mile limit of Canada's northern shores, Page A-6, BP of Alaska Inc. boasts the North Slope's only registered nurse, and true to the northland's prohibition of the weaker sex, this RN is a male. Helen Atkinson of Fairbanks interviewed Richard Romano at BP's Prudhoe Bay camp recently and filed this report, Page A-7.

RESOURCEFULLY RetoorcttEditor EVEN IF THE ALASKA Legislature concurs with Gov. Keith Miller's proposal for the state to build a permanent haul road from the Yukon River to Alaska's North Slope, several obstacles to an immediate start of construction loom large, both legal and political. The federal government has not yet conceded Gov. Miller's contention that he has unilateral authority to build the road, and the U.S. Justice Department is still studying that question.

U.S. Interior Secretary Hickel says his approval is required, and Russell Train, chairman of the president's powerful Council on Environmental Quality, remains opposed to the road's construction over predominantly federal lands in Alaska unless the proposed Trans Alaska Pipeline is also built. The pipeline project uncontestably requires federal approval, which it is not likely to obtain unless TAPS satisfactorily overcomes the U.S. Interior Department's objections to what it considers inadequate design and engineering criteria. In the alternative, TAPS must either agree to build nearly half of the pipeline aboveground, or propose a change in routing which would dispose of the Interior Department's conviction that a hot oil pipeline cannot be buried in permafrost.

So far the pipeline consortium has betrayed no intention to proceed with aboveground construction. And any attempt to avoid permafrost, even assuming it's possible, could require such a drastic re-routing that the haul road which the (See RESOURCEFULL Page A-2).