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Piob Ola Alasga/Alaska Pipeline

Getting oil out of Alaska. Ola fhaighinn a-mach à Alasga. The story of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

When prospectors struck oil at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, they stumbled upon the largest oil field in North America. Getting that oil out of Alaska would take nine years, employ some 78,000 people, cost more than $8 billion and require threading 800 miles of steel pipe through America’s most pristine wilderness.
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline changed just about everything and everyone it touched from the people who opposed it to the people who supported it, the people who built it, and the state of Alaska.

In the summer of 1977, Alaskan crude began to flow through the finished pipeline. Since then, the pipeline has delivered some 15 billion barrels of oil - half again as much as predicted. But the disaster that pipeline opponents said was inevitable came in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez ran aground, spilling a quarter-million barrels of oil. It was the largest, most destructive oil spill in US history.

Nuair a fhuair lorgairean ola ann am Bàgh Prudhow ann an naoi-ceud-deug seasgad ‘s a sia, bha iad air lorg fhaighinn air an raon-ola a bu mhotha ann an Aimearaga a-Tuath. Bheireadh iad naoi bliadhna mus fhaigheadh iad air an ola fhaighinn a-mach à Alasga; bheireadh iad cosnadh dha seachdad ‘s a h-ochd mìle neach-obrach; chosgadh e còrr is ochd billean dolair; agus ruitheadh iad ochd cheud mìle de phìob stàilinn tron fhasach a bu bhòidhche ann an Aimearaga.

Dh’atharraich a’ Phìob Tar-Alasga an ìre mhath a h-uile càil agus a h-uile duine a thàinig na luib – daoine a sheas na aghaidh agus feadhainn a bha air a shon; an fheadhainn a thog e, agus Stàit Alasga fhèin.
As t-Samhradh naoi-ceud-deug seachdad ‘s a seachd, thòisich ola amh Alasganach a’ sruthadh tron phìoba. On sin, tha a’ phìob air toirt còig-deug baraillean de dh’ola dhan dùthaich – dàrna leth a-rithist a bharrachd air na bha iad a’ sùileachadh o thùs.

Dubbed in Gaelic with English subtitles

50 minutes

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