“We need the oil industry to maintain our way of life”

The Willow oil project, validated by the Biden administration, scandalizes environmental associations. But locally, in northern Alaska, almost everyone is in favor of it.

Codename: Willow. This oil drilling project in Alaska, implemented under Donald Trump, would have cost the country $5 billion in fines if it had been abandoned. So, despite his campaign promises, Joe Biden gave the green light last March. A scandal for environmental defense associations, while COP28 aims to gradually phase out fossil fuels. And while Alaska is warming twice as fast as other American states.

In northwest Alaska, where the Willow project will be located, live the indigenous Iñupiat people. Utqiagvik, 5,000 inhabitants, is nicknamed “Top of the World” by its inhabitants: pick-ups and rusty cans between houses facing the Arctic Ocean. Mike Donovan is both a snowmobile salesman and president of the Barrow Whale Fishermen’s Association, the former name of Utqiagvik. “I would say about 40 to 50 percent of our population is in the oil industry, maybe even morehe explains. A lot of people don’t like it, but we need the oil industry to maintain our way of life.”

A disruption for migrations

Willow will be the largest oil project in the country: $8 billion, 600 million barrels of crude oil produced over 30 years, more than 9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, but above all 2,500 jobs and 17 billions of dollars in revenue for the federal government. “Taxes from oil companies fund our schools, our health system, our housing, our public works system”says Doreen Leavitt, the natural resources director for the Iñupiat community across northern Alaska.

“We’ve only had running water and flushing toilets for 50 years. It’s not that old and it’s oil taxes that made this possible.”

Doreen Leavitt, director of natural resources for the Iñupiat community

at franceinfo

A petition against Willow has gathered more than 3.5 million signatures nationwide. But few local opponents of the project have spoken out, apart from Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, the mayor of Nuiqsut, the village closest to the site. She believes that the drilling of the oil group ConocoPhillips, which refused to answer us, will notably modify the migrations of caribou, hunted by its citizens.. “We eat a lot of foods for their high fat contentshe elaborates. When it’s -40 degrees, extremely cold, and I have to work for hours outside, I need my whale meat and my caribou blubber.”

The only consolation for her: the ban on any new gas or oil exploitation, announced in September by the Biden administration. A ban which concerns an area as large as Denmark, north of Alaska.