Barrow's Oil Wealth Comes At A Steep Cost

BARROW, Alaska - One of the richest cities in the United States has no paved roads. Nearly half its homes do not have running water. And much of it appears to have been buried under a rain of junk.

Barrow does, however, have police officers who make almost $100,000 a year, some of the most expensive schools ever built and milk - flown in daily by jet - that retails for $6 a gallon.

The nation's northernmost settlement, clinging to the icy edge of the continent, is a kind of Saudi-Appalachia on the permafrost. What used to be a remote Eskimo whaling outpost has, within two decades, become the astoundingly wealthy capital of a petro-kingdom.

Barrow is spending hundreds of millions to remake itself and the outlying eight villages scattered stingily across the tundra. Financially, no place in the United States has gone so far so quickly.

The scale of the resulting cultural collision may also be unmatched. Where once there was only arctic wind, now there's Arctic Pizza.

Bob Aiken, whose great-great-grandfather jumped from an Irish whaling vessel to marry an Eskimo, shakes his head at parts of the new Barrow. "Money," he said, "changes a lot."

A lot, but not everything - so far, anyway. Snowmobiles and Nissan Pathfinders crowd streets that not long ago were traversed mainly by dog sled. Cable TV brings 51 channels to a people who were, for thousands of years, some of North America's most isolated.

Barrow's transformation, however ragged, springs from two dynamics - the United States' insatiable appetite for oil and Barrow's strategy to capitalize on that appetite.

"We took control of our destiny," said George Ahmaogak Sr.

Ahmaogak is mayor of the North Slope Borough, a governmental entity that extends across the top of Alaska. It's 20,0000 square miles bigger than Washington state, but has a population of just 6,000.

Inupiat Eskimos make up three-fourths of the borough, known as the largest local government in the world. Oil companies opposed its incorporation in 1972 because of its purpose: to tax the equipment and facilities - including the Trans-Alaska Pipeline - of Prudhoe Bay, the largest oil field in North America.

Problems with wealth

Today's Barrow shows what a billion dollars and change will buy. "Quality of life has improved at all levels," Ahmaogak said.

The money has brought necessities and amenities to Barrow that few could have envisioned only 25 years ago. Bigger problems with crime and alcohol have come along, too.

Other underdeveloped places have lurched unsteadily into modern life. But perhaps only Barrow still brings business to a halt whenever someone harpoons a whale.

Closer to the North Pole than to the lower 48 states, Barrow endures more than two months during each winter when the sun never rises above the horizon. Gales blowing off the Arctic Ocean can drop the wind chill to minus 90 degrees.

The nearest city is Fairbanks, 500 miles to the southeast, but you can't drive there from Barrow. You can't drive anywhere from Barrow. No highways lead in or out. Air travel provides the only reliable link to the outside world. The Arctic Ocean is impassable for most of the year.

For 4,000 years, the Inupiat Eskimos had the place to themselves. European contact began in 1826, when Barrow gained its present name, after a member of the British admiralty. White whalers made Barrow a stop in the late 19th century.

Only one generation back, many here lived in sod and whalebone houses or huts crafted of wood salvaged from ship wreckage. Education and health care were minimal.

Cash stayed scarce. "We lived off the land," said Aiken, the city's recreation director. "It was a simple life."

Now, $300,000 modular houses are brought in by barge, sirloin steaks arrive fresh at the supermarket and the high school has an Olympic-sized indoor heated pool.

This year alone the borough government will have revenues of $306 million. More than half of that will go to pay off loans, for the Inupiat have spent their oil money and borrowed more. Bonded indebtedness now exceeds $1 billion.

The borough built hospitals, community centers and water systems. It formed bus services, fire departments and police forces. Barrow's high school cost $80 million. It has fewer than 200 students.

With its many remaining run-down houses and piles of scrap, much of the "Top of the World" still looks like the end of the line. But there's plenty of money for new vehicles and homes. Six of 10 workers are employed by local government and at good pay. Secretaries and laborers can start at $25 an hour.

Not only natives are drawing high wages in Barrow. Many outsiders come here seeking a relative fortune, arriving on flights from Anchorage and Fairbanks.

If the bears aren't around, the streets of Barrow are safe to walk. But the city is not crime-free.

Most of the problems are related to liquor. This month, the residents voted, by a margin of seven votes out of 1,221 cast, to ban alcohol.

Assaults, suicides and brain-damaged babies have been the frequent consequence. In the past four years, police took more than 2,000 drunks into protective custody. In that period, police said, drunken men committed 87 rapes; 26 victims were children.

"I don't think there's one family that's not affected by alcohol," said Aiken, the recreation director. "It's getting into the grade schools, that's how bad it is."

Alcohol, easy money and Native culture have never mixed well in Alaska. North Slope leaders say they're trying to counteract outside influences with a strong emphasis in the schools on traditional Inupiat life.

"They've done a good job with it," said Richard Romer, former rural-affairs specialist with the governor's office. "They're very high on education."

While preserving old ways, Barrow also has to worry about losing new ones. At Prudhoe Bay, oil production trends point downward.

Eventually, Barrow will need new sources of income. To Ahmaogak, that means drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a controversial proposal opposed by environmentalists and many Democrats in the U.S. Senate.

The refuge, just under half the size of Washington state, constitutes the eastern quarter of the North Slope Borough.

Oil companies have shown interest in drilling offshore near Barrow, but the Inupiats have opposed that. Such drilling might disrupt the migration of whales.

"The culture is centered on the whale," said the mayor. "We wouldn't have been here for thousands of years without the whale."

The International Whaling Commission banned bowhead hunting in 1977. Inupiats protested, and the commission granted them special quotas for subsistence hunting.

In Barrow, the harvesting of a whale turns into a community festival. When news comes that a crew has taken a bowhead, people flock to the beach.

Past generations of North Slope Eskimos braved the ice and deadly cold, armed with spears as they stalked seals and bears.

People here still hunt, but some things have changed. Barrow officials recently dispatched their $6 million search-and-rescue helicopter to bring back a fisherman with a toothache. The search-and-rescue team has three choppers, in fact. And it's buying a Learjet.