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One less-recognized effect of development is accumulation of drift waste along the Beaufort Coast.
Helicopter and beach plot surveys in 1985-86 and 1989-90 showed that the major type of drift waste was styrofoam of many shapes and sizes. Most of this was related to oil drilling in the Beaufort Sea - which is now inactive - and to Mackenzie River and coastal navigation. The beach plot surveys yielded estimates of one item of drift waste per metre of coastline along the North Slope from the Alaska border to the end of the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula.
Most styrofoam washes up along beaches with the Mackenzie River driftwood.
Although this beach litter may not have an obvious harmful effect on coastal and marine life, it represents a measure of degradation of wilderness.
Fuel drums, both at abandoned land-based fuel caches and washed up along the coast, are also legacies of past development activities in this area.
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