You could consider it a zoning decision of landscape proportions: The U.S. Bureau of Land Management completed a planning document for Alaska’s Eastern Interior. The plan governs land use on 6.7 million acres managed by the BLM. They are spread across 30 million acres, from the Canadian border to Livengood, and just skirts the city of Fairbanks. The most contentious part of the plan is the Fortymile Mining District, which includes the towns of Eagle and Chicken.
BLM said it is making more land available for mining claims and mineral leasing. The plan calls for 60 percent of the Fortymile district to be open to mining. The executive director of the Alaska Miners Association doesn’t see that as anything to brag about.
“To say it’s better than status quo is an easy claim for them to make because the bar was really quite low,” Deantha Crockett said.
Crockett said the plan will be burdensome to the area’s placer miners and, in places, complicate access to their claims.
“If there is a new requirement to have substantial, multi-volumed mining applications for what really is a very simple method of mining, (it) will make it substantially more difficult than it already is for these small mom-and-pop operations to succeed,” Crockett said.
But Suzanne Little called the plan “balanced.” She works for Pew Charitable Trusts and helped tribes participate in the planning process. Little is especially happy about the new Draanjik part of the planning area, which includes Chalkyitsik and Fort Yukon.
“We’re thrilled that BLM listened to the concerns of the people who live with the land and had a deliberative process that addressed those concerns of local tribes,” Little said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Congressman Don Young and Gov. Bill Walker say they will try to rollback some of the restrictions. In a written statement, Murkowski criticized new designations branding a million acres as “Areas of Critical Environmental Concern.” BLM says the areas protect habitat for caribou, Dall sheep and other resources. Murkowski maintains the designations go too far and will be harmful to the state’s economy.
Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at lruskin@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Liz here.
