Drilling will not affect migration patterns

The gist of the May 24 editorial “Preserving Alaska benefits Iowa” seems to be that drilling for oil in Alaska will somehow upset the natural migration of several species of birds, which will deprive tens of thousands of Iowa hunters, photographers and bird watchers of doing their thing. This irrational reasoning is flawed on two counts.

The notion that somehow some oil rigs sporadically situated on a trifling amount of land along the virtually uninhabited northern edge of the vast frozen area of Alaska will have any material effect on migration patterns defies reason.

Additional oil production from this area will help alleviate the need for additional petroleum, benefiting millions of Iowans, without any noticeable, appreciable or significant damage to our environment.

There is no logical reason that there should be any contradiction here. Motorists can benefit without hurting environmental considerations.

Dick Roggensack

Waukon