What Does The Future Look Like

In Sunday’s Anchorage Daily News, Paul Jenkins wrote an editorial entitled “Quality of Life Will Dry UP If Aces Not Fixed”.  Mr. Jenkins draws us a picture of what life in Alaska would be like if oil stops flowing down the pipeline.  To quote Mr. Jenkins, “Imagine a thicket of weathered ‘For Sale’ signs crowding the streets in your neighborhood, touting empty homes nobody can afford, their owners long ago U-Hauling south, fleeing as the state’s economy belly flopped.” Unless our legislature is able to work things our with the oil companies, that is exactly what could happen.

Corporations are all about the bottom line.  If it is financially feasible for them to operate in Alaska they will.  The moment that drilling in Alaska doesn’t make financial sense any longer, they will close up shop and move elsewhere.

My wife and I moved to Alaska in 1986.  For a teacher new to Alaska, that was not a good time to be making such a move.  The problem wasn’t a lack of oil production (production hadn’t reached its peak yet) but a drop in oil prices.  The price of a barrel of oil in 1986 had fallen to below $10 a barrel and unemployment had risen to 9.4%.  Teachers and other public employees were being laid off.  Foreclosures were up and businesses were closing their doors.  Do we really want to return to the economy of the mid 1980’s?  At least then there was the hope that oil prices would rise and the economy would recover.  If the pipeline were to shut down, would oil ever flow through it again.

Surely, there is a solution that would be acceptable to all of the parties involved. 

Dave Donk