Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

And this just blew the lid off of everything that had been happening in Anchorage over the course of about 12 years.

So since Anchorage was growing at an exceptionally rapid pace during the 1970s and early 1980s, due to the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, women were sadly able to disappear far more easily than they ever should have.

Because these women were working as dancers, escorts, or sex workers, they were already living with an increased risk of violence.

But because Anchorage was a place where people were coming and going so easily and quickly, sudden disappearances were commonplace and people weren't really questioning them.

An actual plane, yes.

So not long after Hanson and Darla relocated to Alaska, Anchorage became what is known as a boom town.

This is a place where the population grew massively over a very short period of time due to the development of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

So everyone's coming into town to get their hands and start working on this.

So, uh, so this film, In Alaska, eh, uh, "Woody is a young, depressed Inuk teen whose life is upended by a single desperate mistake." Oh, I've been there, bud.

"When his attempt at self-harm fails and an errant bullet pierces the Trans-Alaska Pipeline-" There are huge ramifications.

Yeah, I changed it all.

He's suddenly labeled an eco-terrorist and forced to go on the run.

And as a historian, I became really fascinated in this and it made me wonder, have we as a nation ever debated whether or not we should build one of these fossil energy projects before in our history? And if so, how did it turn out? That actually led me to Alaska.

It led me to study the history of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which I argue is the nation's first environmental battle over fossil fuel infrastructure.

And certainly that was an infrastructure which was built.

And so that's what I ended up writing my dissertation on and moved to Alaska and fell in love with the place because of that and really became fascinated with all things energy as part of that process.

Right, let's end with that.

When we believe in ourselves, when we're involved in the process, when individual Alaskans put their shoulder to the grindstone, when we come together as people that live on the top of the world in a climate that's harsh and fierce, that we help each other through, that we do great things in, we do things like build an Alaska pipeline, Trans-Alaska pipeline, still pumping oil, pumping billions of barrels more than it was ever supposed to.

We solved 60% of the arctic engineering questions in the world in that time, in the 1970s, by building that pipeline.

Engineering questions that are still in place today.

The rest of the territory is state or native-owned land.

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System was first authorized in 1974 and built over the following three years.

The last federal renewal was made in 2003 by the administration of President George W. Bush.

That process took years and involved a full environmental impact statement that evaluated subjects like the impacts of aging on the structure, long-term changes to permafrost, and oil spill risks.

People started looking for other alternatives.

It was because of the Arab oil embargo that the Trans-Alaska pipeline system was built.

And the price of oil became so cheap because there was so much of it during the 80s that places that rely on – that rely on – governments that rely on oil tax revenue – like Texas or Alberta and Canada, had major budget crisis because they were predicting that the price would just keep going up.

And then when it crashed, all of a sudden, budget shortfall.

And there was pushback against what Roger said.

You mean we're not going to report when the Trans-Alaska Pipeline terminus station blows up and kills three employees? We're not going to report that? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You do need to report that, but you also need to be proactive.