Editing Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (section)

===Conservation objections===
[[File:Alaska Pipeline and caribou.jpg|right|thumb|250px|A [[caribou]] walks next to a section of the pipeline north of the [[Brooks Range]]. Opponents of the pipeline asserted the presence of the pipeline would interfere with the caribou.]]
Although conservation groups and environmental organizations had voiced opposition to the pipeline project before 1970, the introduction of the National Environmental Policy Act allowed them legal grounds to halt the project. Arctic engineers had raised concerns about the way plans for a subterranean pipeline showed ignorance of Arctic engineering and permafrost in particular.<ref>Coates, p. 185</ref> A clause in NEPA requiring a study of alternatives and another clause requiring an [[environmental impact statement]] turned those concerns into tools used by the [[The Wilderness Society (United States)|Wilderness Society]], [[Friends of the Earth]], and the [[Environmental Defense Fund]] in their Spring 1970 lawsuit to stop the project.<ref>Coates, pp. 189–190.</ref>

The injunction against the project forced Alyeska to do further research throughout the summer of 1970. The collected material was turned over to the Interior Department in October 1970,<ref>Coates, p. 193</ref> and a draft environmental impact statement was published in January 1971.<ref name="Coates196">Coates, p. 196</ref> The 294-page statement drew massive criticism, generating more than 12,000 pages of testimony and evidence in Congressional debates by the end of March.<ref>Coates, p. 199</ref> Criticisms of the project included its effect on the Alaska [[tundra]], possible pollution, harm to animals, geographic features, and the lack of much engineering information from Alyeska. One element of opposition the report quelled was the discussion of alternatives. All the proposed alternatives—extension of the Alaska Railroad, an alternative route through Canada, establishing a port at Prudhoe Bay, and more—were deemed to pose more environmental risks than construction of a pipeline directly across Alaska.<ref name="Coates196"/>

Opposition also was directed at the building of the construction and maintenance highway parallel to the pipeline. Although a clause in Alyeska's pipeline proposal called for removal of the pipeline at a certain point, no such provision was made for removal of the road. Sydney Howe, president of the Conservation Foundation, warned: "The oil might last for fifty years. A road would remain forever."<ref>Coates, p. 203</ref> This argument relied upon the slow growth of plants and animals in far northern Alaska due to the harsh conditions and short growing season. In testimony, an environmentalist argued that arctic trees, though only a few feet tall, had been seedlings "when [[George Washington]] was inaugurated".<ref>Coates, p. 200</ref>

The portion of the environmental debate with the biggest symbolic impact took place when discussing the pipeline's impact on caribou herds.<ref name="Coates207">Coates, p. 207</ref> Environmentalists proposed that the pipeline would have an effect on caribou similar to the effect of the [[First transcontinental railroad|U.S. transcontinental railroad]] on the [[American bison]] population of North America.<ref name="Coates207"/> Pipeline critics said the pipeline would block traditional migration routes, making caribou populations smaller and making them easier to hunt. This idea was exploited in anti-pipeline advertising, most notably when a picture of a forklift carrying several legally shot caribou was emblazoned with the slogan, "There is more than one way to get caribou across the Alaska Pipeline".<ref name="Coates208">Coates, p. 208</ref> The use of caribou as an example of the pipeline's environmental effects reached a peak in the spring of 1971, when the draft environmental statement was being debated.<ref name="Coates208"/>