On June 20, 1977, oil began flowing down the Alaskan pipeline. It got off to a rocky start, however, as power supply problems, a cracked section of pipe, faulty welds, and an unsuccessful dynamite attack on the pipeline outside of Fairbanks delayed the arrival of oil at Valdez for several weeks. In August, the first oil tanker left Valdez en route to the lower 48 states. The trans-Alaska pipeline proved a great boon to the Alaskan economy; it soon was delivering more than one million gallons of oil per day, or about 15 percent of America's total oil production. At its peak production in the late 1980s, it delivered over two million gallons a year. Today, it produces just over a million gallons a day.
For its first decade of existence, the pipeline was quietly applauded as an environmental success. Caribou populations in the vicinity of the pipeline actually grew (due in part to the departure of grizzly bears and wolves scared off by the pipeline work), and the permafrost remained intact. The only major oil spill on land occurred when an unknown saboteur blew a hole in the pipe near Fairbanks, and 550,000 gallons of oil spilled onto the ground. On March 24, 1989, however, the worst fears of environmentalists were realized when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in the Prince William Sound after filling up at the port of Valdez. Ten million gallons of oil were dumped into the water, devastating hundreds of miles of coastline. In the 1990s, the Alaskan oil enterprise drew further controversy when the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. attempted to cover up electrical and mechanical problems in the aging pipeline.
In 2001, President George W. Bush proposed opening a portion of the 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, east of Prudhoe Bay, to oil drilling. The proposal was greeted with overwhelming opposition from environmental groups.
[Source: History Channel]
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