Safety
Safety is always the first priority for the Alaska Pipeline Project. All field employees and contractors receive extensive training in work-related safety protocols, as well as wilderness and survival training. Field teams start each work day with a safety meeting, reviewing important procedures and identifying challenges likely to be encountered in the work environment.
Protecting the Environment
The project has made environmental protection a core value. This includes minimizing impacts even during the field studies. For example, crews place drip pans under all fieldwork project vehicles parked along the pipeline corridor to prevent even tiny amounts of gasoline or motor oil getting into the environment. To prevent the spread of non-native species, hydrologists and fish biologists take extra precautions by decontaminating their gear between sites. In addition, APP has already banned felt-soled boots for all of its workers in compliance with a new Alaska law that will go into effect in 2011. In recent years, studies have shown that invasive species of micro-organisms can be transported between bodies of water by boots and waders with felt bottoms.
Field Studies
Over the summer and fall months of 2010, Alaska Pipeline Project engineers, scientists and technicians have expanded their work in the field on dozens of studies, advancing the essential ground work for securing permits to construct the project. The studies covered topics such as soil permafrost, seismology, fish counts, wetlands, archaeology, and cultural resources, and will continue as the permitting effort progresses. The field programs examine the project’s proposed pipeline routes in Alaska and Canada as well as the proposed site of the project’s world class gas treatment plant.
In Alaska, the 2010 research focused on sites located between the North Slope, where the natural gas is found, and Delta Junction, south of Fairbanks. In Canada, studies were conducted in both Yukon and British Columbia. Future years’ studies will expand in scope and include other project locations.
Approximately 200 engineers, scientists and technicians participated in this year’s fieldwork, a majority of whom were Alaskan and Canadian residents working for local businesses and suppliers. The studies employed 20 Alaska Natives in various technical positions in the Alaskan field studies. A similar number of First Nation’s people participated in the Canadian studies.
Biological & Cultural Resources Field Studies
The project's biological and cultural resources field studies have been designed to ensure that wildlife, ecosystems and archaeological sites along the pipeline corridors are protected during construction and operation. This summer, fish and wetlands biologists surveyed sections of the proposed pipeline routes to identify critical habitats and evaluate fisheries; hydrologists studied water-crossings, including streams, lakes and rivers; and cultural resources teams searched for archaeological sites.
Using state-of-the art field computers and GPS devices, the science teams sent real-time data back to project offices in Anchorage and Calgary. This enabled project engineers and planners to advance their work in tandem with the scientists in the field. All of the information gathered will help project teams evaluate the optimum route for the pipeline, including facility locations that will most effectively minimize the environmental and archaeological impacts of the project.
Engineering Field Studies
In addition to biological and cultural resources field work, the project also conducted numerous engineering studies that will also guide route selection and construction design. These included drilling bore holes, assessing water crossings and fault zones, and conducting aerial mapping. Drilling bore holes to collect soil samples is critical to understanding the terrain along the pipeline corridor. The soil samples help engineers map the presence of ice and permafrost and study how the soil reacts to weather conditions, compaction and seismic activity. The permafrost (permanently frozen sub-soil common in Northern Alaska and Canada) poses one of the challenges engineers face in route selection and construction design. Project geologists also conducted in-depth studies of fault zones along the pipeline corridor. These studies began with several months of aerial mapping and analysis of satellite imagery. Once the geologists identified key areas of interest, they dug a number of trenches along the proposed route to study and map the behavior of various fault zones. Seismic conditions in some areas may require route adjustments or other modifications during construction.
Moving Forward
In spite of the Alaska and northern Canadian winter conditions, some field studies will continue through the 2010-2011 winter season, including collecting meteorological data on the North Slope and assessing the impact of winter weather on some fish habitats. Project scientists will be back in the field in Alaska and Canada during the spring and summer of 2011 to continue and further expand their research as the Alaska Pipeline Project continues to progress toward its goal of constructing a large diameter pipeline to take North Slope natural gas to market.