Chief, Alaska Environmental Studies Section

The residents of Nuiqsut, Kaktovik, and Barrow are close to the oil industry activity onshore on the North Slope and in the adjoining Beaufort Sea. Subsistence is central to the Inupiat people residing on the North Slope.  Virtually all Inupiat residents rely on subsistence resources directly or through kinship sharing. Bowhead whaling is especially important and impacted if OCS activity causes reduction in whale hunting success.  Inupiat leaders, including elders, have expressed concern about the effects of potential oil spills on bowhead whaling and cumulative impacts of past, present and future oil industry activity onshore and offshore.  At a meeting in Barrow in March 2000 elders defined two principal questions concerning cultural, social and economic impacts:

A.                 Regarding offshore oil and gas activities, do people in Barrow, Nuiqsut, and Kaktovik feel that these activities have: a) resulted in positive social, economic or cultural impacts to their community, and/or b) resulted in negative social, economic or cultural impacts to their community?

·          If members of a community feel there have been positive social, economic or cultural impacts to their community, what are the positive impacts and how can they be quantified?

·          If members of a community feel that there have been negative social, economic or cultural impacts to their community, what are the negative impacts and how can they be quantified?

B.                 What kind of support would need to be put in place to enable Alaskan Eskimo subsistence communities to continue subsistence activities and keep traditional subsistence ways of life intact in the event of an oil spill or cumulative impacts (including air and/or water pollution and noise) that make subsistence resources locally unavailable?

To quantitatively estimate the social and cultural impacts of OCS oil and gas exploration, development, and production in the Beaufort Sea on the communities of Nuiqsut, Kaktovik, and Barrow; and to recommend mitigation measures.

1.   Identify what people observe and anticipate as the positive impacts and opportunities of OCS activities.

2.   Identify what people observe and anticipate as the negative impacts and risks of OCS activities.

3.   Quantitatively describe direct impact experiences and anticipated experiences by bowhead hunters.

1.      Review the literature, including previous testimony, and make a preliminary list of North Slope impacts and concerns expressed by residents (positive and negative).  Review the methodologies and survey questionnaires used in the social indicator studies conducted by MMS in the 1990's for possible use in this study.  Gather a thorough list of residents' observed and anticipated impacts and concerns through focus group meetings in Nuiqsut, Kaktovik, and Barrow. Potential impacts would likely include, among others, pollution, noise, and other factors that may make bowhead whales and other marine resources more difficult to hunt or unavailable.  Collect information on residents' views of possible remedies or mitigation measures related to those concerns and impacts.  Design the list of impacts in such a way as to separate OCS-related impacts from other impacts as much as possible.  Circulate this list of impacts and mitigation possibilities to the NSB, AEWC, village contacts as appropriate, and MMS.

2.      Use the literature and focus group data to develop a draft questionnaire.  Distribute that questionnaire to the NSB, AEWC, SRB, village contacts, and MMS for review and comment. Pretest the questionnaire (N<10) in the communities, make revisions as appropriate, and re-circulate the questionnaire for final review.  Obtain approval from the Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as required for federally funded questionnaires, estimated to take 6-8 months.  Develop interviewer guides (question by question, tracking, and reporting procedures) and conduct an interviewer training session.

3.      Coordinate with NSB, AEWC, and community contacts to enable face-to-face interviews in Barrow, Nuiqsut, and Kaktovik.  Due to its large size and socio-demographic heterogeneity, use a stratified, representative, and randomized sampling strategy in Barrow.  Attempt to interview randomly selected adult members in all households in Nuiqsut and Kaktovik, with the expectation of a response rate of over 80 percent.  Select a subsistence-oriented Arctic or sub-Arctic control community outside of the North Slope and conduct a representative and randomized sample of interviews there.  Ideally, members of the control community will hunt bowhead whales.

4.      Code the surveys, enter data into SPSS (or equivalent statistical package), check, and edit.  Use basic univariate and bivariate analyses to generate valid and reliable descriptive information for inclusion in summary tables and graphs, and to provide quantitative-oriented but readily understandable descriptive discussion in the draft and final reports.  Use multivariate analysis to explain variation in the data and to provide quantitative-oriented but readily understandable explanatory discussion in the draft and final reports.  Draw from findings about respondent’s ideas for potential mitigation measures to develop a draft recommendation section.

5.      Develop a draft report and present it to the AEWC, NSB, SRB, and village contacts in Nuiqsut and Kaktovik for extensive input and commentary.

6.      Finalize the draft report based on the input and commentary of interested parties and present and disseminate study findings to those parties.

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