ALASKA  (CONT)

"Spills are a daily occurrence on the North Slope," said Whittington-Evan. "Just before BP shut their pipeline down there was another spill."

Between 1996 and 2004, 4,532 spills were documented including diesel fuel, hydraulic fluid and chemical spills, she said.
Nearly all of the 800-mile Alaska pipeline's feeder lines are 30 years old, five years past their 25-year design lifespan.

"There's a long list of problems with the oil and gas industry and a long list of broken promises," she said. "One thing is clear: Oil and gas development does not mix with wilderness."

The Iñupiat people live inside the NPRA and told Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to protect the region when he visited the North Slope for the first time in early September.

"The risks outweigh the benefits" if drilling interferes with subsistence hunting in the region and the lake area "should remain off limits," Edward Itta, mayor of the 8,000-square-mile North Slope Borough in the heart of the region, was reported as saying.

Kempthorne has said the lease sale for the entire region will proceed because the United States will need the oil in the near future.

Alaska's economy is based on the oil and gas industry and when leases are auctioned off by the federal government it receives 50 percent of the lease bid and annual rental revenues. Previous NPRA sales have brought the state more than a hundred million dollars.

The National Audubon Society and some other environmental groups are preparing a lawsuit to stop or delay the Sep. 27 sale.

Most of the three million acres leased in 1999 has not even been explored to see if there is oil and gas, says Senner. "Now they want to add millions more acres -- what's the rush?" he asked.

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