Bill threatens Alaska's public land, report says

The Copper River Delta is part of Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

By Environmental News Network staff

February 17, 2000
Web posted at: 12:30 p.m. EST (1730 GMT)

Alaska's national parks, reserves and designated wilderness may be in jeopardy if legislation now circulating through Congress is passed, according to a report from the National Parks and Conservation Association.

The Rural Alaska Access Rights Act, introduced in October 1999 by Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, aims to change how the state's public land is managed.

	MESSAGE BOARD
Global Climate

"The majority of folks thinks that parks are protected places. The reality is there are a lot of threats to national parks, especially in Alaska," said Marcia Argust, a legislative representative on Alaskan issues for NPCA.

Murkowski's bill, S. 1683, would pave the way for new roads, mining interests, tourism and residential development. It would also open more territory to snowmobiles and personal watercraft, according to the NPCA.

According to the NPCA report, the bill takes dead aim at management of five national parks in the state: Denali, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Katmai and Wrangell-St. Elias.

"The Alaskan delegation in Congress is in a position to do damage to some parks (in Alaska) in favor of development and special interests," said Argust. "How the law has played out 20 years later is to fulfill the interests of Alaskans and protect natural resources. When you take a closer look at this bill, there's a lot going on that that tips the scale in favor of developers."

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska Interest Lands Conservation Act, protecting 131 million acres of land in the state. Murkowski wants to change the language of the act to "protect Alaskans against creeping over-regulation by the Federal government and to protect public lands."

Two amendments to the bill could set an alarming precedent for the welfare of other public lands, said Argust. One includes a section that would stop federal land managers from managing proposed wilderness areas as designated wilderness. "This bill also says that harm has to happen before any action to regulate the cause of harm," said Argust. That's not how our land should be managed, we don't wait for damage to happen before we take action to stop it."

"Our concern is that over the next few months, three people are going to be able to influence the destiny of our national parks," said NPCA president Tom Kiernan in presenting the report, "Alaska's National Parks: Conflict, Controversy and Congress." "It is our heritage, not the heritage of one or two senators," added Kiernan.

According to a National Parks and Conservation Association report, the Rural Alaska Access Rights Act takes dead aim at five national parks in the state: Denali, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Katmai and Wrangell-St. Elias.

Alaska's three U.S. congressmen Representative Don Young and Senators Ted Stevens and Murkowski, all Republicans represent a powerful congressional triumvirate. Each is the chairman of a legislative committee that holds sway over national parks. Young is chairman of the House Resources Committee, Murkowski heads the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and Stevens presides over the Senate Appropriations Committee.

When Carter set ANILCA in motion, Congress created 10 national park units (designated as parks, preserves or monuments) and expanded three existing parks, more than doubling the size of the National Park System. It added 47 million acres to the NPS, increasing Alaska's total national park land to nearly 55 million acres, two-thirds of the entire system. About 32 million acres was designated as wilderness.

"Alaskans feel they are being denied access to their property and their ability to engage in behavior on public lands in Alaska that was guaranteed to them," said Chuck Kleeschulte, Murkowski's press secretary. "There is no question that there needs to be clarification that the lands act is not functioning as intended in 1980."

"Alaska is different and all (Murkowski's) bill is trying to do is clarify the meaning of the act as intended in its first 10 or 12 years," he added. "Nothing in this bill would increase activity in parks. It does not affect the park as far as road-building, but it does allow traditional uses for snow machines and helicopters. If someone wants to snow-machine where that wasn't allowed before 1980, then they are not allowed. If a use was permitted before 1980, it should be permitted now.

"There is nothing in this bill to prevent the Secretary of the Interior or Agriculture to close part of a park if there is a documented case where access caused environmental harm or degradation to wildlife."

Argust disagrees. "This is not just a technical corrections bill," she said. "That's ludicrous."

The Rural Alaska Access Rights Act would amend ANILCA in the following ways: