Eight hundred miles of the largest oil pipeline ever to be built (4 feet in diameter) received the go-ahead some months ago from the House Interior Committee in Washington. The TransAlaska Pipeline System (TAPS), largely owned by the oil companies Atlantic Richfield (Arco), Humble Oil and British Petroleum (BP), has already taken delivery of steel pipe from Japan and is plainly confident that the Com­ mittee's decision will be ratified by Congress. The line, which is to run from Prudhoe Bay on the north coast of Alaska to Valdez on the south is regarded with enthusiasm by the state administration, with horror by the con­ servationists—who see the dangers that lie ahead.

The dangers are considerable. Much of the pipeline will have to run through the region of permafrost, permanently

by Robert Allen One of the last great wildernesses, the Alaskan tundra, is threatened by the new oil boom. Oil companies and conservationists naturally differ over the extent of potential damage, but plainly there are very real dangers: to the landscape, the caribou —and to the Eskimos.

frozen ground which in places can be up to 1,300 feet thick. Any heavy or heated structure that is built on it must either be on piles or on insulating gravel pads. In summer, serious erosion can occur if the tundra is not so protected, for when the thin layer of thawed ground

on the surface is broken the permafrost starts to melt. Thus it is not unusual for a tractor to alter the surface drainage of a wide area—indeed the trail one caterpillar tractor train blazed a few years ago is now a 50 foot gorge.

I t is proposed that the pipeline follow river valleys as much as possible, since it can be buried in the gravel beds that are often found in them. This wiU slightly reduce the extent of permafrost affected by the pipeline, and corre­ spondingly lessen the likelihood of its melting or otherwise being disturbed. However the risk of disturbance and of differential settlement is still high: the temperature of the oil when it enters the pipeline will be about 160°F, and friction and pumping energy will in­ crease it. There will be a certain amount of heat loss to the frozen ground around the pipe, but it is estimated that the

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