USGS Geologic Division Retirees Newsletter
No. 44, March 2001

SAVING THE ALASKA PIPELINE

Gene Robertson, with help from Art Lachenbruch, George Gryc, and Jim Devine

The 800-mile oil pipeline crossing the Arctic Coastal Plain, the Brooks Range, the intermontane uplands, the Alaska Range, and the Coastal Mountains is one of our more spectacular constructions. The oil companies used more than 25,000 roustabouts and others to perform this tremendous feat, but it took the USGS four years to persuade them how to do it properly. Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), formed by seven oil companies used more than 25,000 roustabouts and others to perform this tremendous feat, but it took the USGS four years to persuade them how to do it properly. Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), formed by seven oil companies, announced plans in February 1969 to build a 4-foot diameter pipeline to carry crude oil from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. In 1967 and 1968 they had confirmed the existence of lots of oil just east of the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 on the North Slope. TAPS announced that they planned to bury the pipe in a ditch across Alaska, and right away they ordered the pipe, in April 1969. The temperature of the oil coming out of the ground was 80 deg C, and so most Alaskan earth scientists, engineers and informed public worried that the heat in the oil would melt the pervasive, thick, permafrost layer along the right-of-way and cause terribly damaging spills.

Secretary of Interior Hickel was alerted, and immediately he appointed Bill Pecora, USGS Director, to chair a Technical Advisory Board. Pecora then appointed the Menlo Park Working Group (mostly USGS people) to advise the Board. The Group included George Gryc, Chairman, and Jim Balsley, Max Brewer, Hank Coulter, Don Culbertson, Oscar Ferrians, Rube Kachadoorian, Art Lachenbruch, Fred Sanger, and Tom Ovenshine. From other government agencies there were Fred Crory, Oscar Dickerson, Warren George, Bill Quinn, and Jack Turner.

Art Lachenbruch, in the late 1940’s, dug up and studied ice wedges in permafrost in off-hours during five field seasons with George Gryc and others on the North Slope. In 1951-1952 Art and his new bride spent a year and a half at Barrow, AK, along with Max Brewer, measuring permafrost temperatures and thermal properties, the basis for his Ph.D. thesis on "Thermal Problems in Permafrost" (1958). While working on heat flow in the southern 48, in 1969, he got excited about the AK pipeline proposal when he heard about it from Irv Talleur standing next to him in a men’s room at the USGS in Menlo Park: "Art: Is the oil hot?; Irv: Yes." At Gryc’s and Pecora’s urging, Art spent a few months doing elaborate and (in those days) expensive computer calculations and writing on the melting of permafrost by the heated pipe; his results showed clearly that the pipe would float, twist, and break. All this he wrote up in the 1970 USGS Circular 632, "Some Estimates of the Thermal Effects of a Heated Pipeline in Permafrost." From then on, this Circular with its detailed engineering analysis was the fundamental supporting document used in planning of the pipeline location and construction by the Government advisors and by the oil company engineers. Pecora gave a copy of the Circular to TAPS early in 1970, but the TAPS engineers failed to deal with design problems through 1970.

Pecora was frustrated by the inadequacy of many extensive discussions with oil company engineers and by the lack of understanding of the permafrost problems shown in the multi-volume Project Description of July 1971, provided by Alyeska Pipeline Service (which replaced TAPS), and so he brought the whole Menlo Park Group to Washington. Then (according to George Gryc), he thanked them for telling the oil companies "what they can’t do," but that he wanted them to tell the companies "what they can do." There was some grumbling, so Pecora locked the door of the conference room and told the Group that he would not let them out until they had finished the analysis of the question: "Bury or no-Bury?" So the Group did put together the necessary stipulations on the pipeline construction, much of which appeared in a USGS Environmental Impact Statement in March 1972; they were not precise specifications because of the great variations in environmental conditions.

As it turned out, the Menlo Group and Alyeska engineers talked together thereafter in a more friendly atmosphere, discussing design plans informally but effectively from early 1972 until November 1973. There were disputes of course, and at one point, Alyeska sent an archivist to control Alyeska documents who was later found to be a psychologist and whose job was to prepare character analyses of the Menlo Group members, presumably so that Alyeska could write more persuasive documents. In November 1973, members of the House and the Senate (with Vice-President Agnew breaking a tie) voted to grant a right-of-way permit for Alyeska, and President Nixon signed it promptly. Alyeska had design problems into 1974, but in April construction of a 400-mile, all-weather road from the Yukon River to Prudhoe Bay was started. Pipeline and storage tank construction at Valdez began in 1975. In mid 1977, the first tanker took oil off from Valdez.

Some statistics of interest. The initial estimated cost of installing 800 miles of buried pipeline was $900 million, and the actual cost was more than $8 billion. Actually, the length of buried pipeline is 409 miles and the above-ground length is 382 miles (see cover for the two designs). Four permanent airfields were built. There are 20 major creek and river crossings; the Yukon River bridge is 2,300 feet long with five 150-foot-high piers. The pipeline has 9 pumping stations and is built to carry 2 million barrels of crude oil per day. Oil flows at 4 mph in the pipeline, taking a week to reach Valdez. Seven miles of specially refrigerated pipe was buried at the principal Caribou crossing, although apparently the Caribou spurn the whole area. At Valdez, 18 tank, 250 feet in diameter by 62 feet high (0.5 million barrels each), and four berths for ships were built. The Alaska Pipeline has been very successful financially for the eight oil companies of Alyeska, with only a few breaks of the pipeline occurring--in buried sections. The State of Alaska has received about $300 million per year from the oil companies; Alaskan Natives (Eskimos, Indians, Aleuts) and citizens received annual stipends from that fund.

The result of the USGS efforts was a major savings in operating costs and in freedom from damage to the environment, wildlife, and general welfare of Alaska.

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