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In 1979, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers designated the
entire North Slope of Alaska as a protected wetlands. Ninety-
nine percent of the tundra on the North Slope is treated as
wetlands for regulatory purposes.
Even with the extensive oil wells and oil recovery equipment
and facilities that were constructed in the Prudhoe Bay oil field
and that will be described further below, the North Slope of
Alaska accurately may be described and regarded as essentially
undeveloped, as a habitat for fish, wildlife, and birds, with
occasional subsistence use of the land by isolated Eskimo
communities.
Physical access to the North Slope is limited. The Dalton
Highway, a two-lane gravel road that traverses the Brooks
Mountain Range, provides the only land access. The only all-
water route to the North Slope follows the west coast of Alaska
north through the Bering Sea, around Point Barrow, and east to
Prudhoe Bay. Except during an ice thaw that lasts, on average,
6 weeks in late summer when the Arctic ice cap sufficiently
recedes from the shoreline, marine vessels and barges cannot
access Prudhoe Bay.
The North Slope has no significant local infrastructure.
Fairbanks, located approximately 400 miles to the south and
beyond the Brooks Mountain Range, is the nearest city to Prudhoe
Bay. Anchorage is located 700 miles to the south. Other than
the facilities and personnel associated with the Prudhoe Bay oil
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Last modified: May 25, 2011