FWS 'preliminarily' recommends wilderness for  ANWR coast(08/15/2011)

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

The Fish and Wildlife Service late Friday issued a preliminary proposal for
Congress to designate new wilderness along the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge's oil-rich coastal plain, a move that drew fire from the state and
its congressional delegation.
 
The agency's draft "comprehensive conservation plan" for the 19-million-acre
refuge in northeast Alaska says the 1.6-million-acre coastal plain is
"highly suitable" for wilderness and is "preliminarily recommended" for
designation, which only Congress can authorize.
 
But the draft environmental impact statement does not include a preferred
alternative, a decision that will be made sometime after the agency's
three-month public comment period ends in November, the agency said.
Potential drilling in ANWR has been one of the hottest flash points in the
conservation debate for years.
 
The draft also preliminarily recommends more than 10 million acres of new
wilderness in the Brooks Range and the Porcupine Plateau and contemplates
four new wild and scenic rivers.
 
"The involvement of the public is a critical part of the multi-year
comprehensive conservation plan development process, and we look forward to
receiving substantive public input on the draft plan," Sharon Seim, natural
resource planner in the Alaska region division of FWS conservation planning
and policy, said in a statement. "We want to know what people like, what
they don't like, and why. We want to know what we've missed and how we can
make the plan better."
 
The agency is holding six public open houses in Alaska through the beginning
of September.
 
The draft drew early praise from several environmental groups that have
fought to protect the coastal plain from oil and gas development, which they
warn could disrupt a critical birthing ground for polar bears, bird species
and the porcupine caribou herd.
 
"We certainly are optimistic that this means that FWS is leaning towards
wilderness,"
Gwen Dobbs, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Wilderness League, said in an
email. 
"From Sen. [Lisa] Murkowski [R-Alaska] and [Mark] Begich's [D-Alaska]
reaction, it seems like they also think that the wilderness designation is a
real possibility. We can hope."

But the lawmakers and Gov. Sean Parnell (R) said the review itself is
redundant and runs afoul of a 1980 Alaska lands law that they argue
prohibits new wilderness reviews.
 
"I disagree with them wasting their money on that plan, because it did
nothing other than to tell us the stuff we already know," Begich told
Greenwire late last month. "If they ever consider, or even attempt to put it
into permanent status as wilderness, you will see us, or at least me and the
delegation, fighting tooth and nail. We'll never let it happen."
 
Murkowski, who is ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee and the Appropriations subpanel that funds FWS, said in a
statement Friday that the agency's review violates the 1980 Alaska National
Interest Lands Conservation Act.
 
A provision of the law states, "No further studies of federal lands in the
state of Alaska for the single purpose of considering the establishment of a
conservation system unit, national recreation area, national conservation
areas or for related or similar purposes shall be conducted," unless
authorized by Congress.
 
"The administration lacks authority to even conduct wilderness reviews in
Alaska without the express consent of Congress," Murkowski said. "Congress
has given no such approval."
 
The agency, which could not be reached for comment in time for publication,
in a statement said plan revisions are broad-based efforts rather than
single-purpose studies of possible conservation system units. The review
complies with a 2010 directive from former FWS Director Sam Hamilton, is
consistent with ANILCA and the National Environmental Policy Act, and needs
no authorization from Congress, the agency said.
 
While oil and gas development is currently off limits on the coastal plain
-- which is estimated to contain about 10 billion barrels of oil -- a
wilderness designation, which bars the construction of roads and mechanical
activity, would further impede development at a time when supplies to the
nearby Trans-Alaska pipeline are dwindling, energy proponents say.
 
Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Murkowski, said development of the refuge
would provide new revenues to government coffers as lawmakers grapple over
ways to reduce the federal deficit.
 
"You could save a lot of debt with a million barrels a day," he said. "While
we understand we need to raise revenue and cut spending, instead of looking
to taxes, why don't we develop our resources?"
 
The agency in its draft review said a wilderness designation on the coastal
plain would allow current means of access to continue, including motorboat,
snowmobile and aircraft use. Wilderness would also provide long-term
protection for the lands, wildlife and subsistence users and would preserve
the natural conditions in which their cultures evolved, it said.
 
And while about 250 people recreate on the coastal plain each year, the
agency said protecting the refuge from oil and gas provides intangible
benefits to all Americans.
"The coastal plain ... also holds symbolic and existence values for many
people who find satisfaction in just knowing the area exists and will be
passed on to future generations," the review states. "While many such values
are not quantifiable, they are nonetheless real for many people."
 
The agency has never recommended wilderness for the coastal plain. The
previous conservation plan for the refuge in 1988 recommended full oil and
gas development in the area and did not recommend wilderness for either the
Brooks Range or Porcupine Plateau.
 
Congress has since debated numerous bills that would either open the area to
oil and gas development or preserve it as wilderness.
 
Murkoswki is also pushing a bill that would allow companies to drill
horizontal wells up to 8 miles underneath the coastal plain.
 
 

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