The entire Arctic refuge is one-third the size of the United Kingdom (which includes Scotland and Wales). The drilling site would be one-seventh the size of Manhattan Island. The footprint is tiny. I hope you know this is completely false.There is not some 2,000 acre pool of oil waiting to be slurped up – oil drilling would occur over a vast area of almost 2 million acres. The famous “2,000 acre” figure that would supposedly be used for drilling includes only the spot where equipment actually touches the ground -- this perverse metric was snuck in by none other than New Hampshire's John Sununu, in one of the most dishonest pieces of legislation to ever enter Congress.
By Sununu's logic, your car occupies about 2 sq. ft. of land.
That figure does not include roads, pipelines (except for the tiny footprint of their support posts), gravel mines, exploration wells, and other sites that severely affect the well-being of wildlife to roam. You can be sure that heavy industry will criss-cross the entire area before they are through. And that seriously inhibits the ability of wildlife to roam freely and thrive.
Moreover, there’s relatively little oil in ANWR – high-end estimates are about 12 billion barrels. The U.S. uses over 7 billion barrels each year. And it’s not like ANWR oil will be reserved for Americans – it will be auctioned on the world market at the highest possible price.
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