738 



12 



County, Virginia. Even without knowing with certainty that oil and 

 gas underlie the Atlantic OCS, the giant fabricating company of 

 Brown & Root, Inc., of Houston has purchased a 2,000-acre tract of 

 land at Cape Charles to build oil production platforms for the 

 offshore. 



The plant would have a major impact on rural Northampton County. 

 A private study, done by Urban Pathfinders, Inc., for the county plan- 

 ning commission, predicted that the county population, without the 

 Brown & Root facility, would decline from the present 14,000 to 12,700 

 in 1985. With the plant in operation, employing 1,500 persons directly 

 and leading to 200 additional jobs, the coimty would grow to 16,000 

 persons in the same period. 



The study foresaw serious short-term negative impacts as a result 

 of the Brown & Root facility. The suddenness of the development 

 build-u]3 would lead to '"widespread community disruption" involving 

 housing shortages, inadequate school facilities, crippling employee 

 losses to indigenous agricultural and fishing activities, and inade- 

 quate tax revenues to cover growing county expenses for public services 

 and facilities during the next 5 to 10 years. On the other hand, the 

 Urban Pathlinders study predicted that the net long-term impacts 

 on the county would be beneficial, if careful planning were done with 

 the full participation of Brown & Root itself. 



The Gulf of Alaska has been designated by the oil industry as the 

 most attractive frontier of the OCS for future exploration. The U.S. 

 Geological Survc}' estimated in March 1974 that up to 18 billion bar- 

 rels of oil and 90 trillion cubic feet of natural gas may underlie the 

 Federal lands in the Gulf of Alaska. A series of discoveries would 

 have a major impact on the communities along the Alaskan coast. In 

 addition, the special requirements of operating in adverse weather 

 conditions and thousands of miles from the ultimate market for the 

 oil will add to the burden Alaska must bear to support ofl'shore oil 

 operations. 



There are signs, even before the Hrst Federal lease sale is held off 

 Alaska, that these impacts are beginning. Several oil companies have 

 purchased tracts of land on the shore in the small community of 

 Yakutat, which an Exxon spokesman described in 1973 testimony 

 before the Council on Pmvironmental Quality as "'probably the most 

 ideally located" place to serve as a staging area for Gulf of Alaska 

 operations. Seismic vessels exploring the gulf have called at Yakutat 

 for fuel, water and rest and recreation. Rumors of speculative land 

 purchases abound, and local citizens report sudden increases in land 

 values. But the major impacts can only be guessed at until post-lease 

 exploration confirms or denies the USGS estimates of Gulf of Alaska 

 reserves. The P>xxon testimony elaborated on the likely extent of these 

 impacts, in the event that substantial commercial quantities of oil 

 and gas do. in fact, exist in the area : 



One of the most important secondary impacts on a wilder- 

 ness environment such as that along the Gulf of Alaska would 

 be the offices, warehouses, and living facilities of the resident 

 employees and their families. ... As production grows it 

 would become necessary to have more and more personnel "on 

 location" until within a year or so a sizable community would 



