Arctic Terrestrial Environmental Research Programs of the Office of Energy Research, Department of Energy: Evaluation and Recommendations (1982)

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Arctic Terrestrial Environmental Research Programs of the Office of Energy Research, Department of Energy: Evaluation and Recommendations

LOCATION OF ENERGY RESOURCES IN ALASKA Point Hope “Ullty Ulenyyyp, BROOKS RANGE o + @. e a ©. a“ . of « = af _ (P gormn Jp EssteCirde "FAIRBANKS a Healy . Btn a venlC«<“‘z ” % ‘ W] Metanuska Z we 5! y es /ANCHORAGER* re “ ' Bering River yy * apes a we NX @ Wht Coal Basin Sw Cos! Field O oi @ Ges B Potential Hydroelectric Power Site 2500 MW or greeter (5 Prospectivety Valuable for Geothermal Steem SOURCE: Adapted from Energy Resource Map of Alaska (1977).

1 Summary and Recommendation The U.S. Arctic contains known and unproven reserves of oil, natural gas, and coal, which represent up to 40 percent of the total of undiscovered recoverable oil and gas resources remaining within the jurisdiction of the United States. On the basis of oil resources alone, as much as 50 percent may occur in the U.S. Arctic (National Petroleum Council, 1981). Alaska's coal resources, underlying about 12 percent of the land, are large, perhaps equal to those of the rest of the United States. The area is also the last large reserve of relatively undisturbed wild lands in the United States. The need for energy on the one hand and wilderness values on the other has stirred deep contro- versy in Alaska, as elsewhere, where the two conflict. National, state, and local priorities frequently disagree. As in most similar situations, tradeoffs must occur, but first information is urgently needed that will enable policy makers and resource managers to make intelligent decisions about the consequences of various development options or preservation and protection. In the Arctic, as elsewhere, the development of energy technologies must take into account the unique features of the environment. As the nation moves to take advantage of the large energy resources of Alaska, specific technologies related to surface mining; pipeline construction; road, railroad, and airfield construction; and the siting and building of storage facilities will be developed by industry in order to exploit these resources.

In addition to the specific physical features of the environment that energy technologies must overcome, Alaska is unique because of its wilderness qualities and because the human populations of the Arctic maintain ties with traditions based on use of the living resources of the area. Almost none of the infrastructures of economically developed areas exist, and when energy development occurs on a large scale, communities, roads, refineries, water and waste facilities and the like must also be developed. Much, if not most of the impact is likely to result from development of this kind rather than from the direct application of specific technologies. It is important, therefore, that the Department of Energy (DOE) exercise its responsibility for the environment broadly by identifying where energy developments are likely to occur, the kinds of impacts that can be expected, and the measures that can be used to mitigate them by supporting the required scientific research. The Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977 calls for DOE (a) to conduct research on the environmental effects of energy technologies and programs and (b) to advance goals of restoring, protecting, and enhancing environmental quality. Based on its evaluation of DOE's Arctic terrestrial environmental research, the Committee concludes that DOE and its predecessor agencies have supported research appropriate to their missions. Despite the somewhat changing emphases of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the Energy Research and Development Agency (ERDA), and DOE, a remarkable degree of consistency is apparent in their commitment to high- latitude environmental research. The research programs of DOE have contributed substantially to Arctic science. The AEC deserves recognition for the research it fostered a decade or more in advance of the concern for the environment and its protection. The funding of integrated ecological and ecosystem research by DOE has been crucial, because it is certain that if the research conducted at Cape Thompson, Amchitka, and other Arctic and Subarctic sites had not been funded, little, if any, research of an ecological nature would have continued in the U.S. Arctic. In addition, literally hundreds of Arctic -2-

scientists received their training as members of these funded research projects. The Committee believes that DOE should continue to fulfill its mission in the Arctic by supporting a program of research that will: 1. Focus on the problems of environmental quality resulting from energy technologies and programs; 2. Utilize the techniques of experimental manipulation to gain the capability to predict the impacts of energy development on environmental integrity; 3. Bring knowledge developed in prior environmental research to bear on the problem of maintenance of environmental integrity; 4. Produce scientific results that are applicable to many types of sites and landscapes; and 5. Gain an understanding of short-term and long-term environmental effects of disturbances so that better management decisions can be made about alternate development procedures, protection and restoration. In its consideration of how these objectives might best be met, the Committee recommends that in the future a large part of the research supported by DOE concentrate on integrated ecological studies of the environmental effects of energy-related development in the Arctic. It is not possible at this time to anticipate where energy-related development will occur in the Arctic, but it is possible to predict the kinds of disturbances many of these developments will produce in terrestrial situations. A useful summary of the location of known energy resources of Alaska is provided in the Energy Resource Map of Alaska, 1977. Although the following is not an exhaustive list, it is certain that ecosystems will be disturbed to different degrees by gravel mining and road construction, preparation of construction sites, changes in drainage patterns, atmospheric pollution, precipitation of acid rain, proliferation of spoil from coal mines, forest and tundra fires, dust from surface traffic and construction activities, and the use of chemical additives or the spill of oil and other petroleum by-products.

Aside from the direct and physical interference with living species by development, more far-reaching modifications will occur to ecological systems to which the species belong. Changes in environmental conditions such as soil moisture, temperature, active layer thickness, permafrost distribution, pH, nutrient input or stream sediment or changes in biological processes such as photosynthesis, nutrient cycling, or microbial transformation of nitrogen eventually affect all the organisms present as environmental effects cascade from a change in a single environmental condition or biological process. The Committee recommends that integrated ecological studies be centered in at least one intensive research site or landscape unit,* either in the tundra or the taiga or in a contiguous area containing both. The major practical advantages in this approach are that a number of research projects would work at a single landscape unit and the separate projects would be tied together by their common need for information about and measurements from all parts of the system. We believe, further, that DOE can maximize the benefits of its research dollars by concentrating its research efforts in one area, where support and logistics costs can thus be minimized. Other benefits from the site- intensive approach are as follows: 1. Many results can be generalized to other northern sites. 2. The entire landscape is examined for selected impacts. 3. The research will produce more integrated information on long-term effects and recovery. 4. The information can be used with greater confidence for solutions to applied problems. 5. A framework is provided for setting research priorities. 6. Predictability about the effects of energy technologies and programs should be improved. * The terms "intensive site" and "landscape unit" are used synonymously here and throughout the text.

7. An ideal training environment for Arctic scientists is provided. Experience in organizing and performing integrated ecosystem research in Alaska and elsewhere suggests that this research approach is most successful when it is evaluated and given direction periodically. The results of the evaluation are then useful in soliciting and evaluating research proposals. The Committee recommends, therefore, that (1) a Research Advisory Panel be constituted to guide and evaluate the program and provide periodic scrutiny, program continuity, and project integration and (2) a process be established whereby the scientific community is made aware of opportunities to participate in DOE-funded Arctic and Subarctic terrestrial environmental research and is encouraged to submit proposals that will be reviewed and evaluated by peers in a timely manner. The Committee recommends that the site-intensive project be coordinated and integrated by a single scientist, the Project Director. The Project Director should be a person with substantial experience in Arctic research and in integrated ecosystems research. The leadership and direction provided by the Project Director is regarded as essential to the success of the integrated, site- intensive effort. The Committee recommends that DOE allocate a smaller part of its research funds for the purpose of encouraging and stimulating research from scientists whose proposals are meritorious but could best be undertaken independently of the integrated effort. The Committee considered the question of research sites and concluded that many excellent possibilities exist. A candidate research site (landscape unit) should contain a broad spectrum of habitats including a stream and several representative vegetation types of the tundra or the taiga. At the outset, the Committee recommends that only one such site be designated as an intensive site. Later, if funding levels permit, one or more additional intensive sites could be designated.

Recognizing that no single site is likely to include the range of environmental conditions in which energy development will occur and acknowledging the necessity in some cases to seek independent confirmation of the results of experiments conducted at the intensive site, the Committee recommends that secondary (extensive) sites be established to meet these requirements. The sites described in Chapter 6 should meet this need. Several sites were discussed as having potential for the conduct of the Arctic research plan proposed for the DOE: Barrow, Cape Thompson, Prudhoe Bay, the Toolik Lake area, and the Caribou-Poker Creeks area. The Committee investigated the possibility of DOE cooperating with other agencies or with industry in its Arctic research. Past experience suggests that federal interagency committees do not provide consistent, direct assistance, but we believe that if the results and knowledge base generated by this program are to be available and used by those pursuing energy development in Alaska, it is important to seek collaboration among user agencies at an early date. One mechanism to achieve this involvement is to invite Alaskan institutions and industries to participate in the design and evolution of the program. Both DOE and the scientists involved have a responsibility to pursue this principle.

2 Introduction The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the U.S. Energy Research and Development Agency (ERDA) have sponsored environmental research in Alaska for about 25 years. In the 1950's and 1960's the direction of this research involved attempts to assess the potential or actual effects of man-made radioactivity on ecological systems or on species including man. During the early part of this period, atmospheric nuclear-weapons experiments had resulted in the fallout of radioactive nuclides over the northern hemisphere. The growing realization that such products can accumulate in biological systems, with possible harmful effects, influenced the eventual cessation of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. During the period between 1958 and 1963, Project Plowshare, dedicated to the peaceful uses of nuclear explosives, proposed several experiments that would have resulted in the release of some radionuclides and other radioactivity. One of these experiments, Project Chariot at Cape Thompson in northwestern Alaska, was intended to excavate a large crater through the explosion of buried nuclear devices. The concern over the potential biological “cost" of this experiment stimulated a large, multidisciplinary program of bioenvironmental investigations sponsored by AEC. This research, conducted between 1959 and 1963 (Wilimovsky and Wolfe, 1966) was the first environmental research sponsored by the AEC in the Arctic. In connection with

the underground testing of nuclear weapons, a similar program was carried out on Amchitka Island (Merritt and Fuller 1977) in the Aleutian chain between 1969 and 1973. Unlike the proposed cratering experiment at Cape Thompson, which was never carried out, the Amchitka tests were conducted, and follow-up monitoring of the site continues today. The bioenvironmental investi- gations at Cape Thompson and Amchitka are described in Chapter 3. Aside from these large ecosystem-level investi- gations, the AEC, ERDA, and DOE have sponsored research that has been less site-intensive and related more to ecological processes. The series of investigations that monitored the levels of radionuclides in soils, Plants, and animals (including man) (Hanson, 1975; 1976), the studies of reindeer (Luick and White, 1975), and the investigations of the movement and accumulation of radioactive materials in a Subarctic environment (Miettinen and Hasanen, 1967) are examples of the fundamentally mission-oriented research sponsored by these agencies in the Arctic. During the 1960's and 1970's ecological-environ- mental research in the Unitea States became more systems-oriented than had been the case earlier, and several ecosystem-level studies under the aegis of the United States International Biological Program (IBP) (funded primarily by the National Science Foundation) attempted to do "complete" structural and functional studies of the major biomes of the United States. The study of the Arctic tundra at Barrow, Alaska, under this program happened to coincide with the discovery and development of oil and gas at Prudhoe Bay in northern Alaska. Concomitant studies at Prudhoe Bay itself, some of which were sponsored by DOE and some by the oil industry, added an applied emphasis to the overall research program. Follow-up studies sponsored by the National Science Foundation under the Research on Arctic Tundra Ecosystems program (RATE) at Atkasook and studies on Arctic lake ecosystems at Toolik Lake continued the intensive-site, integrated research that had characterized the IBP work at Barrow. The development of the oil pipeline corridor from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez together with an accelerated exploration of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska

(NPRA) in the mid and late 1970's led to a significant expansion of mission-oriented environmental investigations related to the development of petroleum resources in Alaska. DOE has sponsored several of these studies, and they are reviewed in Chapter 3. During the 1980's and beyond, Alaska will see a rapidly increasing development of its oil, gas, and coal reserves, based on national needs that have been exacerbated by falling domestic production and increased prices abroad. Many of these reserves are in the Arctic, and their development will surely conflict with other national needs--particularly those related to environmental protection of wilderness. Research is urgently needed on the impact of various development programs on Arctic ecosystems, so that tradeoffs can be made where possible between development and protection, and where development is undertaken it can be done with minimum impact. Given DOE's assigned mission, it has a critically important responsibility to support needed research or to help resolve these conflicting national needs.

3 Assessment of Arctic Research Projects of the Department of Energy The major part of DOE's Arctic bioenvironmental research program during the 1960's and early 1970's consisted of site-intensive multidisciplinary research, especially at Cape Thompson in northwestern Alaska and at Amchitka Island in the Aleutian Islands. These two sites were investigated in connection with activities by other programs of the AEC~--the Applications of Underground Explosives Program and the Military Appli- cations Program, respectively. Expenditures in support of research at Cape Thompson including logistic costs amounted to about $3.6 million and at Amchitka Island to about $13.4 million. Apart from these large multidisciplinary studies, the environmental research programs of the AEC, ERDA, and DOE, sponsored between 1961 and 1980 are distributed over a wide geographical area and are related more to ecological process than to specific sites. For the 20-year period, about $8.3 million was spent on these programs. For the last several years, funding has been at about $1 million annually. DESCRIPTION AND EVALUATION OF RESEARCH PROGRAMS In conducting this assessment the Committee has had access to project proposals and reviewers‘ comments, progress reports, and, in some cases, the ~10-

investigator's report on what were considered to be the major accomplishments of the research. The Committee's analysis is divided into three major parts: 1. The Cape Thompson, Project Chariot, investigations; 2. Amchitka Island investigations; and 3. General environmental research investigations. Each program has been geographically separate from the others and has had different funding sources and somewhat different justifications and objectives. CAPE THOMPSON—PROJECT CHARIOT (1959-1963) The major objective of Project Chariot was to determine if a crater could or should be excavated in the Ogotoruk Creek Valley near Cape Thompson, Alaska, 68° 06' N lat., 165° 45' W long., using nuclear explosives. The bioenvironmental investigations conducted in connection with the project were designed to determine the biological cost of the cratering explosions and provide baseline studies for post- detonation evaluation. Investigators representing more than 40 separate disciplines carried on their studies in and around the Ogotoruk Creek Valley on the Chukchi Sea coast of northwestern Alaska. In general, the focus of the terrestrial environmental studies was on the Ogotoruk Creek Valley as a landscape unit. The individual projects were largely descriptive, and the questions that were asked were structural in the sense of the ecosystem, i.e., what, how many, and where. The projects were not integrated nor did the overall scientific project have central direction. At the time of its publication, the Cape Thompson volume (Wilimovsky and Wolfe, 1966) represented the most complete study of an Arctic landscape yet attempted. One of the study's most important features was the implied understanding that landscape management requires multidisciplinary approaches linking the physical and biological parts of the system. A large, but unknown, number of open-literature publications, progress reports, theses, and dissertations have also been published about the research at Cape Thompson. -ll-

In a real sense, the Project Chariot investigations anticipated the next decade, when environmental assessment would become a standard part of all development projects, and a breakthrough occurred somewhat ahead of its time. The multidisciplinary work at Ogotoruk Creek also proved to be a forerunner of the ecosystem-level investigations that took place about 10 years later under the auspices of the International Biological Program. AMCHITKA ISLAND BIOENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH (1965-1973) The AEC sponsored bioenvironmental research on Amchitka Island in connection with a series of nuclear tests conducted beneath the island. By the time the Amchitka tests achieved prominence, they coincided with the increased national concern about the environment. The Amchitka bioenvironmental investigations differed from those at Cape Thompson. The investigations tended to focus on species of special interest, for example, the sea otter. In general, investigations of the marine environment stood out, and holistic studies of Amchitka Island as a landscape or ecosystem unit were not attempted--even to the extent that this was accomplished at Cape Thompson. Also unlike Cape Thompson, some research support for follow-up studies has been available, but this is almost certainly because nuclear tests were conducted on Amchitka, whereas at Cape Thompson the nuclear excavations never occurred. The Amchitka investi- gations were summarized in a volume (Merritt and Fuller, 1977) and discussed in approximately 75 individual publications in the reviewed literature and in many unpublished progress reports, theses, and dissertations. GENERAL ENVIRONMENTAL-ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH The Committee devoted most of its attention to the projects sponsored by the Ecological Research Division of DOE and its predecessors in ERDA and AEC. This -12=

program has been in existence for about 25 years, and it is in this program that funds for Arctic terrestrial environmental research are made available. During fiscal year 1980, about $1.3 million supported eight research projects, at least some of which included subprojects and more than one principal investigator. Once funded, investigators usually retain support for several years. Seven of the eight projects funded in fiscal year 1980 had received funding in fiscal year 1979, and five of them had been supported for three or more years. Dollar amounts ranged from a low of $42,000 to $335,000 annually, with a modal award amount of around $140,000. In addition to its own funds, DOE administered some pass-through funds from the Environmental Protection Agency, which amounted to over $200,000 annually for a period of 4 years and concen- trated on oil spills and construction efforts in Arctic ecosystems. The Committee's review concentrated on research sponsored by ERDA and DOE over the past 3 or 4 years. Prior to about 1976, adequate documentation was not available for the Committee to perform consistent analysis and synthesis. Projects reviewed are listed in Table l. Much of the work supported by the Ecological Research Division of DOE is mission oriented and related in one way or another to past or present concerns of the agency. For purposes of this review the Committee has made a few arbitrary categorizations of the research projects: 1. Radiation studies of northern ecosystems: The studies have traced the distribution, accumulation, and persistence of radionuclides in soils and in organisms, including man. These are among the most long-term studies sponsored by the DOE, ERDA, and AEC. Important contributions have been made in the definition of radionuclide half-lifes and cycling phenomena in soils, plants, herbivores, and carnivores and in people. The work had important results in determining the degree of exposure experienced by groups such as the Eskimo who depend on natural ecosystems for much of their sustenance, and it has also established baseline amounts of radiation for a variety of organisms in Arctic and Subarctic environments. -13-

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2. Studies of disturbed or otherwise modified surfaces: These projects, two ongoing and one terminated, have studied ecological succession on unvegetated surfaces. The most ambitious of them was a 15-year study of Surtsey Island, a volcanic island that emerged from beneath the sea near Iceland in 1963. It is of particular significance in that it gives an unusual opportunity to view primary succession on a new surface and to demonstrate the origins and means of dispersal of organisms to this new island. Of the other two studies, both are energy related-- the first to surfaces that were disturbed in various construction activities on Amchitka Island and the second to coal mine spoils in Alaska. Both of them seek to understand the dynamics of plant invasion and to determine the most advantageous ways of encouraging new Plant growth on disturbed surfaces. Neither has produced definitive results, but both have potential importance in protecting soils against erosion after mining, road building, and other construction activities. 3. Population biology of northern animal species: A number of investigations have been sponsored that yield valuable information on the biology of important animal species in the Arctic. One group of investigators studied nutritional and environmental adaptation in Arctic ungulates. By studying seasonal changes in metabolic parameters, a better understanding of how these animals have adapted to cold environments was developed. It is typical of these long-term research programs that large numbers of investigators are involved for shorter periods each. Another group of investigators working over a several-year period have studied Arctic foxes and a variety of small mammal and bird species whose activities have been influenced in various ways by the Gevelopment of resources in Alaska, particularly those at Prudhoe Bay. These studies have concentrated on understanding the seasonal life histories of these animals, so that some useful predictions can be made about the impact of future resource development on their status. -15-

4. Baseline studies of plants and animals: It is difficult, if not impossible, to assess the impact of disturbance and development on natural populations of organisms without a background of knowledge that applies to their numbers, distribution, and behavior under natural conditions. One group of investigators has been conducting baseline studies on climate, vegetation mapping, and species distributions along the Alyeska Pipeline Haul Road. Other studies include revegetation of disturbed surfaces, invasion and persistence of weeds, and effects of road dust on vegetation growth. The information derived from the studies has intrinsic value and will be of considerable significance in assessing the long-term effects of the pipeline construction. 5. Ecosystem processes research: A team of investigators pursuing from six to ten projects annually emphasizes the importance of modeling as a tool in the understanding of tundra ecosystems. A combination of field investigations, simulation, and laboratory experimentation is utilized to achieve a basic understanding of ecosystem processes that can be expected to be affected by the development of energy resources in the Arctic. The emphasis of this program is placed on a few select processes in the attempt to derive the parameters necessary to stimulate ecosystem responses. The processes emphasized include carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus balance; water balance; heat balance; plant growth and life history; and the effects of perturbations on several of the processes listed above. It is the Committee's opinion that the researct has contributed very significantly to our understandin< of Arctic ecosystems. Many important findings and conclusions have been derived from this research thus far, and many have immediate application to problems encountered during development. 6. Documentation: A new project seeks to develop a northern plant documentation center. Although it is too soon to comment on this project, it should be useful ultimately in providing accurate plant systematics data for northern studies. It has already played a role in identifying locations of rare and endangered species and in providing essential information in the Environmental Impact Statement process. -16-

CONCLUSION The conclusion that the Committee reaches from this brief analysis is that ERDA and DOE have sought to support research that seemed appropriate to their mission, even if, in some cases, the application of research results may lie some distance ahead. The AEC deserves much credit for having sponsored environmental research long before it was “popular." A point to be made here is that despite the changing emphases of AEC, ERDA, and DOE, a remarkable degree of consistency has been apparent in the commitment of these agencies to northern research. Many substantial contributions have been made toward a better understanding of northern ecological-environmental research. In addition to the substantive contributions to science made by the investigations described, it is important to emphasize other positive aspects of DOE's Arctic environmental research. The research programs evaluated here have involved literally hundreds of persons, many of them students who received training as Arctic scientists on one or more of these projects. This training aspect is especially important to a geographical area that has few educational institutions and little opportunity to train scientists. The funding of integrated ecosystem research beyond the termination of the IBP is especially crucial. The National Science Foundation continued its support of ecosystem research in the Research on Arctic Tundra Ecosystem (RATE). The Office of Naval Research through its Barrow laboratory also contributed to these investigations. If however, DOE had not funded the research related to radiation studies, population biology, and ecosystem processes, substantially less research of an ecological nature would have continued in the U.S. Arctic. The level of research support that has been available from DOE to support Arctic terrestrial environmental research has not been substantial. Nonetheless, $1.3 million per year, used in support of a coordinated and integrated research program (including logistic costs) has made a significant -17-

impact when concentrated on a well-defined set of objectives. With increased support, which, given the size and scope of DOE's responsibility in the Arctic, should make for a high priority, even more progress can be made. In the Committee's view, an integrated research program directed toward problems relating to environmental disturbances and their mitigation can make a great contribution toward solving energy-related environmental problems in the Arctic. -]8—