Teshekpuk Lake

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False-color image of Teshekpuk Lake (left side of image) and the North Slope. Green indicates vegetation and blue indicates water. Some bodies of water also appear in off-white or yellowish, probably due to different amounts of sediment in the water and/or the sun angle. The Beaufort Sea is at the top of the scene.

Teshekpuk Lake is a 22-mile-long (35 km) lake on the Arctic coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, behind Pitt Point, 80 miles east of Point Barrow. Its name is of Eskimo origin, recorded by Rochfort Maguire as Tasok-poh in 1854, and reported to mean "big enclosed coastal water" or "big coastal lake".

[edit] Drilling controversy

On January 11, 2006, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) approved oil and gas drilling on approximately 500,000 acres (2,000 km²) of land in and around Teshekpuk Lake on Alaska's North Slope within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Up to 90,000 geese nest in this area in summer, and up to 46,000 caribou use the area for both calving and migration. Some environmental groups contested the DOI decision to allow drilling. The decision stipulated that no surface drilling would be allowed on land considered crucial for molting geese or caribou, and a maximum of 2,100 acres in seven different zones could be permanently disturbed on the surface.

On September 25, 2006, the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska issued a decision that removed the wildlife habitat around Teshekpuk Lake from an oil and gas lease sale that was held on September 27. The court found that the U.S. government's environmental analysis had violated federal environmental laws. The ruling struck down the Interior Department's leasing plan for the area, prohibiting the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from leasing more than 400,000 acres around the lake. Prior to the decision, led by a coalition of environmental organizations and Alaskan Natives, U.S. citizens sent over 300,000 comments to the Secretary of Interior and the CEO of ConocoPhillips.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

Teshekpuk Lake, Alaska's North Slope. NASA Earth Observatory newsroom. Retrieved on April 27, 2006.

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