Legislature(2001 - 2002)
05/02/2001 04:25 PM Senate RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
SENATE RESOURCES COMMITTEE
May 2, 2001
4:25 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator John Torgerson, Chair
Senator Pete Kelly
Senator Robin Taylor
Senator Kim Elton
Senator Georgianna Lincoln
MEMBERS ABSENT
Senator Drue Pearce, Vice Chair
Senator Rick Halford
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
Confirmation Hearings: Mr. Russell Nelson, Board of Fisheries
Dr. John White, Board of Fisheries
Mr. Pat Pourchot, Commissioner, Department
of Natural Resources
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 01-36, SIDE A
Number 001
CHAIRMAN JOHN TORGERSON called the Senate Resources Committee
meeting to order at 4:25 p.m. He announced the committee would
start with the confirmation of Mr. Russell Nelson to the Board of
Fisheries.
MR. RUSSELL NELSON said, "The Board has adopted sustainable
fisheries policies, which ensures that the Alaska Department of
Fish and Game and the Board are proactive in conserving the fishery
resources into the future."
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked if he had any particular agenda for the
next three years if he was confirmed.
MR. NELSON replied that he did not, other than continuing to
educate himself as much as possible on each issue that comes before
the Board and to try to make a sound decision based upon the facts
the Board receives.
DR. JOHN WHITE told members that he would like to serve another
term on the Board of Fisheries also. He said he would like to
participate on the Board as Alaska's fishery policies reach
maturity. Another goal of his, while also serving on the North
Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission in an advisory capacity, is to
bring together the coordinated applied research in a fiscally sound
manner. His other goal for the next three years will be to listen
to and interact with the public in the committee process.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON expressed concern that the Board of Fisheries
takes up issues out of cycle, a prime example being Cook Inlet,
which the Board takes up every year. He stated, "Before the ink is
dry, you meet again to change the management plan. What do you
intend to do about this in the future, if anything?"
DR. WHITE responded that an exhausting review of the Cook Inlet
fisheries has taken a place and resulted in a 20+ year plan that
reflected best efforts of the Board since the 1970s, which it has
updated. He remarked, "Board members should be looking at different
ways of working with different users." He said that it would help
the communities to stabilize the different fisheries, because they
are not an endless renewable resource.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said the Board of Fisheries was part of the
problem because it can't even let the ink dry on the decision it
made before it meets in an emergency session to change the plan.
DR. WHITE said he tried to address the Chairman's concern by
stating that he hoped this would be the time for them to look for
stabilization of the fisheries.
SENATOR LINCOLN asked Dr. White what role he believes the ADF&G
should play in the board process and how much weight the Board
gives to the information that is presented to it.
DR. WHITE replied that the Board gives ADF&G's information an
extreme amount of weight. ADF&G is the foremost purveyor of science
to the Board. He receives scientific input from other users and
sometimes it is conflicting.
SENATOR LINCOLN asked how he measures the scientific biological
data presented to him by ADF&G or the private sector on which he
bases his decisions.
DR. WHITE responded that to continue within the sustainable
fisheries policy that was approved last month, a cautionary
principle exists that essentially says, when the science is in
doubt and there's a paucity of information, the Board should err in
a conservative manner and try to protect the resource.
SENATOR LINCOLN asked how he determined when science was in doubt.
DR. WHITE responded that many times it's very obvious, because
there are many different opinions about issues, like allocation
issues. He made determinations from ADF&G's information based upon
what he considered to be their recommendations.
SENATOR LINCOLN asked Dr. White if he viewed the reclassification
from personal use to subsistence use in the Chitina dipnet fishery
as precedent setting and what involvement he had with that
reclassification.
DR. WHITE responded that the issue of a Chitina subsistence fishery
was brought up at the Valdez meeting. The Board looked at the
history of that fishery for over 30 years and determined that it
qualified as a subsistence fishery. He did not think it was
precedent setting.
SENATOR LINCOLN asked how much weight he gave to public testimony.
DR. WHITE answered, "A great deal." He explained the board received
limited testimony from tribal parties along the river and had
additional hearings for people who could not attend the main ones.
SENATOR LINCOLN asked Dr. White how important he believes the
multiple use approach is to achieve the maximum benefit for the
people of the state, especially those with an economic stake of
those uses.
DR. WHITE replied, "It is the duty of the board to balance the
development of all those fisheries for the maximum benefit to the
people of the state of Alaska within the confines of sound
sustainable management for future generations' use."
SENATOR LINCOLN asked Dr. White to respond to the large number of
letters in opposition to his nomination.
DR. WHITE responded that he has been involved in allocative
decisions that were very contentious. He wouldn't pretend to make
very many people happy when he makes decisions that were not for
their betterment.
SENATOR LINCOLN asked if he thought he had been fair to all folks
across the state.
DR. WHITE said, "I endeavor to be as fair as possible and not only
fair, but to try to balance in the best possible way, that I could
within my conscience, the allocation decisions I've made."
SENATOR LINCOLN asked Dr. White why, now that he has been on the
board for six years and knows that it can be contentious and
extremely time consuming, he would want to put himself before the
public again and what his goals would be for his next term if he is
confirmed.
DR. WHITE responded that his primary goals will be to look at the
management plan that he has already worked on in different parts of
the state, hear about their effects and try to provide continuity
in review of those management plans, adding amendments to them so
that they reach full maturity. "My second is to hopefully bring the
research institutions that need to get science before the Board of
Fisheries better coordinated. That would be the North Pacific
Anadromous Fish Commission, the North Pacific Research Board, North
Pacific Council, the Board of Fisheries and, for once, have
coordinated research plans that address the difficult decisions
that the board makes. Finally, I would like to be involved with you
in further maturation of the sustainable fisheries projects to see
it to maturity…"
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said he would read him part of a statement that
followed an emergency out-of-cycle meeting (in February) and asked
Dr. White to comment on it.
He [Dr. White], along with the other board members,
wasted 20 million pinks in Cook Inlet. He also, with
other board members, disallowed a sport fish harvest on
the record run of coho.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said, "Before anybody can implement them, you
guys take credit for record runs and then you don't let anybody
harvest them. Are we going to have the same situation again and
again or what are we going to do about this?"
DR. WHITE replied that he didn't agree with the facts in those
comments. He thought the Board acted in the best possible manner
with the information it had at the time. There was evidence
presented and no one ever indicated there was any other evidence
that the prevailing species available to be harvested was coho
salmon. He maintained, "We've had several years of very difficult
coho production in the Inlet. I don't think it was the board's
intent in any way to let unforgone harvest. It certainly wasn't my
intent."
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said that was the end result and now the board
has a plan so that if this happens again next year, the same thing
is in place. He asked why, when the board saw that is was probably
off by a million percent, it didn't allow a sport fish harvest
allowed or commercial harvest allowed for those pinks. He noted the
board could have had another emergency meeting.
Number 1500
DR. WHITE replied that the season was practically over and the
board will hear the information again. It has requested that the
department bring it management plans for pink and chum salmon that
have a rational basis for that management. He looks forward to
receiving that information, as there has been a paucity of
information.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON retorted, "That's the prime reason that meeting
every other month on Cook Inlet issues, or any place, is just not
good policy."
SENATOR LINCOLN asked, regarding personal use fisheries, if the
board has a plan for the rest of the fisheries within the state.
DR. WHITE replied, "No, mam. There is no plan. At the present time,
I think that's a function of budgetary restraints. I think it's a
function of how we arranged with our federal counterparts within
those budget restraints. If I heard correctly that you think there
should be, I would agree with that...."
SENATOR LINCOLN said:
Don't interpret my question to mean that I support
expanding the personal use fisheries in the state to a
subsistence use, because I think that there's certainly a
conflict there when we have the federal interpretation of
the preference to rural residents who are primarily
Natives. There's been great concern about that.
DR. WHITE said that wasn't his inference, but rather that there
should be some sort of comprehensive planning between state and
federal people in every cross jurisdictional situation.
SENATOR LINCOLN said they know the state has not done anything on
the subsistence issue and that it has continued to allow the
federal government to handle our fisheries on federal areas. If the
state does nothing, she asked, would the federal boards take more
of an active role and how would his board interact with the federal
board.
DR. WHITE responded:
As you may well know, at the present time there's special
action requests going to the federal court for both the
Yukon and the Kuskokwim drainages to reduce sport fishing
or to eliminate sport fishing on federal lands. The
simple momentum of federal government involvement is
going to increase. As that momentum increases, their
funding is going to increase. The loss of our human
resources within the department to their system is
probably going to increase as it has in the past several
years as a coincidental nature of a lot of people coming
up in the late 70s and early 80s to the Department of
Fish and Game and their ability to retire and go over to
the federal system. They are presently paying 125 percent
of what state salaries are. We are experiencing a brain
drain in our whole department. The sheer momentum and
weight of influences is going to have an eroding effect
on the State of Alaska's ability to manage its own
fisheries resource.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON thanked Dr. White and Mr. Nelson for their
comments. He said, "Whatever happens in the confirmation process,
you've got tough jobs, both of you, and I want to thank you for
serving."
He announced that Commissioner designee to the Department of
Natural Resources, Pat Pourchot, would come before the committee.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE PAT POURCHOT said it was a great honor to be
appointed last September. He said the Department of Natural
Resources (DNR) has enjoyed a good working relationship with the
legislature this year in trying to address problems like the water
permitting problem and some personnel issues in the Oil and Gas
Division. With some of the resources the legislature has provided
them this year, DNR hopes to come back with some results and
measures by which to judge its performance. He hoped to assist in
that process.
SENATOR ELTON noted that one of his first political jobs was
working for then Representative Pat Pourchot and anything good they
had seen from him was because of Mr. Pourchot. He was impressed
with him then and he remains impressed with him now.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked him to comment on the Kenai area plan in
relation to putting 8,000 acres into parks, which he opposes,
because he doesn't want to totally lock it up. He asked some of his
folks to create a new classification of land that would put
restrictions on it for habitat issues, but to not lock it up so
that nothing can ever be done. This issue concerns area plans all
over the state. He said they are going to be forced to return
federal money that's strictly for the purpose of buying land. He
asked Commissioner Pourchot if he thought it would work and if he
supported it.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied that he hadn't had the
discussion about the Charisma (ph) area with his people. He said
that he is willing to work with Senator Torgerson and look at
alternative land classifications that might afford the needed
protections for that valuable watershed, but might allow some other
compatible uses.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said he didn't want to focus on the Kenai, but
it was a great example. "It ties up two lakes, miles and miles,
hundreds of miles of shoreline, six thousand acres worth of
shoreline of Kenai Lakes, Trail Lakes and others." He said he
understands protection and habitat, but locking it up completely is
a vote of no confidence for future generations.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT responded that last year there was
the expectation there was going to be money for land acquisition
among other things. His department ended up with no more money to
do anything than what they had been getting in the past through the
Land and Water Conservation Fund. They got a little more
preservation money. He is very cautious about promises of new
money. However, most of DNR's priorities, if they do get some
money, is typically split between localities. The localities get
about half and the state gets about half. He explained:
The half the state gets is really targeted to not the
8,000 acres or the big new park areas. It's very
strategic to key inholdings that are in high recreation
areas, like in the Chena Recreation area. It's a very key
parcel for public recreation along the highway and along
the river. They are fairly small discrete areas in terms
of the land acquisition that they are looking at. This
happens to be state land on Charisma, which makes it
perhaps, larger than it would be. I can't envision the
purchase of a large acreage like that through a carrot
type program or a land and water conservation fund
program.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said he could.
SENATOR TAYLOR mentioned EVOS bought 600,000 acres of private land.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON reiterated that people want protection for
habitat, but people also believe that we should look at a different
classification.
SENATOR LINCOLN said she didn't' doubt that he would do an
excellent job as commissioner and asked how he would do things a
little bit differently in diversifying the economic benefits to
Alaskans and maybe agriculture, mining and other areas for
industry.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied:
DNR cannot make things economic and they can't start the
business, but they can provide the resource base or the
land base, the mineral base, the oil and gas base, on
which people then have an opportunity to do things. We
have been in recent years and will continue to move
fairly aggressively on several fronts. One is oil and gas
leasing. We are holding four area wide lease sales per
year, now. The Foothills one will be about adjournment
day, May 7th or 8th. The North Slope one in November we
sold about 713,000 acres of new leased land into oil and
gas leasing.
On the mining front we are enjoying - of course, we have
a lot of land open for claims taking. Last year we had
12,000 mining claims staked, an all time record. So state
land is open and available for staking. We don't offer
that in the same way as oil and gas leasing. Some of
those prospects, as you know in your district, Pogo and
others, have very high potential. We work in a
collaborative way with potential developers, bringing
agencies together. We have a large mine permitting
process that seems to work real well. We permitted the
Fort Knox Gold Mine that way. That is an effort to
achieve the objectives you are talking about in an
efficient way, but bringing in all the parties in things
like that.
In agriculture, we are going to continue to have two
parts. One, we have resold almost all the agriculture
parcels we took back or defaulted over the years with the
exception of odd lot parcels. So, we're trying to get
agriculture lands back into production, back into private
hands. You established a new land disposal category and
retooled one and we are now into our first big cycle to
reoffer state land for private use, both subdivision and
remote parcel. We are going to have a twin component of a
land disposal process that will be ongoing and you all
set up a way of funding that in advance and we're pretty
optimistic that will be an ongoing tool for getting land
in private hands…
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT said that sometimes we don't have
the resources, but he is trying to have an ongoing offering in the
case of timber, of 40 - 50 million board feet per year primarily
for value added local processing so that people can count on it. He
paralleled that to other resource areas. He wants predictability
and stability in the things the state does.
SENATOR LINCOLN said she hears the permitting process is very time
consuming. Although she knew that some of it was budget driven, she
thought it needed to be more streamlined.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT agreed with her and added that they
have a statutory framework to a lot of their processes that are
followed up by regulations that offer the opportunity for people to
challenge decisions. He said there was a sizeable workload in the
process and when they go to court, they take even longer. He said
the small day-to-day transactions go quickly without a lot of
controversy. The department knows it's going to court in some cases
and then becomes even more deliberative and cautious in both the
process and the findings. He pointed out, "The best interest
findings become more comprehensive so that we don't get tripped up
by not addressing something and there's more and more things the
courts tell us we have to address all the time."
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked if he was going to try to negotiate a
better deal with the new President to open the NPRA.
TAPE 01-36, SIDE B
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT said that Governor Knowles talked to
the President about that on his last trip to D.C. He also talked
with Secretary Gail Norton and the Secretary of Energy and
reiterated those topics. He said, "It was appropriate that a couple
of years go by and we have a first sale. Now, we're going to be in
the second drilling season. We think it is appropriate for them to
go back and look at leasing some more of the NPRA area."
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked if he had produced any maps of additional
leasing grounds.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT said he would have to check on that.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said:
The question is, are we going to go in there and start
drilling where there's a high probability of oil or are
we going to push these guys off into the desert somewhere
that there isn't anything there? This is one of your
major positions to try to get them to do that and I would
be interested in knowing what that is.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said that he talked to the Commissioner about
the Netricity resolution on the sale of natural gas on the North
Slope and made sure he agreed with what they were doing. He wanted
to know how they were going to proceed on things like determining
the price of gas. He said the oil companies were saying that the
state couldn't take its share of royalty oil. "We're going to have
to flex a little muscle here and assert our powers as an owner
state, it seems to me. Tell me what's going to happen there."
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT answered:
Those are great questions and some of them we're looking
at seriously for the first time. It's been theoretical in
the past. We are going to obviously be looking at taking
in advance of other production state royalty gas on the
North Slope. One of the key questions is arriving at
value or price. There's a number of problems with the
proposal they have. We have a whole process as we do with
royalty oil that we will be going through that are
statutory - is it in the best interest to sell our gas,
is there any reason it shouldn't be competitive sales.
You then make a series of findings based on some studies
based on other studies the legislature has funded for
instate demand of gas. I think we want to dovetail some
of those findings with this since this is one of maybe
several instate uses of natural gas. Then, it would
presumably go to the royalty board, under statute, for a
review if we would arrive at some proposed sale which I'm
not saying that, but that would conclude, obviously, on
something coming before the legislature for approval. But
those critical questions you alluded to - price, state's
best interest, other uses of gas - we're going to have to
study through those and take a lot of things into
consideration and crunch the numbers.
I will say, though, just on the surface, as you know, we
sell gas now on the North Slope to the producers to burn
for generating electricity on the North Slope and we
charge about $1.10 mcf or so for that gas. That's a value
that we have now and is far above the value that was
initially proposed by Netricity. We would hate to get in
a position where that value goes down to another
established value. That's the grossest of concerns that
you would look at. What happens to your other potential
gas sales that you're interested in. Obviously,
protecting the state's interest in the long term is
foremost on our minds here.
Number 2300
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said the first step is to find out if the state
can legally take the gas prior to a sale. He thought the rest of
the steps weren't necessary once you get through the legal
questions. He thought the Commissioner would have to be very
assertive in getting the legal opinion on this issue.
He also said they run up against the confidentiality requirements
on a lot of data after a well has been drilled. State law requires
that data be kept confidential for two years, but the Department of
Natural Resources can extend that out. He wanted to know reasons
why they would release the information as well as why not.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied that he didn't know all the
reasons. He said the Kick well was the most notable of those wells
and he has heard an explanation of why it was different, but he
couldn't repeat it. He said there are other extenuating
circumstances for proprietary information where there are related
ongoing leasing considerations. He said he would go back and get an
answer to Senator Torgerson's question of whether it's serving the
public's interest.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked what is happening with Pt. Thompson, which
has been under lease for 25 years and the data is frozen. The state
just keeps extending it out.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT explained that the Pt. Thompson unit
has unusual conditions that do not allow the state to force
production from the unit. He explained, "It's part of the lease,
it's a contractual obligation that we have to live with. It's not
like some of the other leases where it's produced or you lose your
leases. These leases at Pt. Thompson were different. We've tried to
work with the owners for 19 years and there have been some wells
drilled, but obviously there's no production. The owners have come
in for inclusion of some other adjacent leases for an enlarged
unit."
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON interrupted to say that it doubles the size of
their units. He stated, "Unless you're going to change it, it has
the same underlying agreements where there's not production,
there's no timeline to do anything, there's no dates to do
anything. It's just here, I'm going to give you more land, if I
understand it right."
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT responded, "If we would agree to put
the additional leases into the unit for sound geologic and economic
reasons, we do have the ability to negotiate the terms of
development and production. We can't dictate them, but there is a
leverage point of if you want these leases in and, by the way, you
don't want them released for new leasing, which we will have the
opportunity if they don't become part of the unit in a year or two
- they vary...."
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked if those come to the legislature for
approval.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied DNR makes that decision and
that, "We are actively and aggressively involved in that
negotiation."
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said he appreciated that and noted, "You call it
a plan for development. Most of us call it a plan for non-
development, because that is what it is." He said to let him know
if they need legislative help on it. He didn't think letting them
not develop Pt. Thompson was in the best interests of the state.
SENATOR LINCOLN asked why we would want to expand the area and not
have a time frame for production. She noted, "It just makes common
sense."
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied:
We would on the expanded area. We can't legally reach the
core area, but they link together in terms of ultimate
production. So if you could reach an agreement on
ultimate exploration and production of the adjacent area,
presumably, they would be produced in conjunction with
that old core area.
SENATOR LINCOLN asked if they could include Pt. Thompson in the
adjacent negotiation.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied that he has asked that
question and the legal answer is that we won't be able to reach in
and change the legal terms of the original leases.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked if the leases expire soon.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied that some of the outline
leases have expired and are on an appeal status. All of them will
expire within two years.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked if that included the entire unit.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied it was just the outlying
areas.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked if the major unit had an expiration date.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied, "No, because they are in a
unit so it stays there. We can't reach production or drilling
requirements because of the nature of the agreement."
CHAIRMAN TOGERSON said he thought DNR could figure out a way to do
it and he encouraged him to do so. He stated, "If they're going to
claim it's uneconomical, let's condemn it and sell it to Phillips."
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked about "discovery royalty reduction" under
leases approved by unit.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT said, "There is the Sambuca well -
we made a decision on that to not grant a discovery royalty
reduction. It was appealed. I heard the appeal several weeks ago.
We're in the process of putting together a decision on that appeal.
The Oil and Gas Division denied the discovery well credit."
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked where the state got that authority. He
thought it had been repealed.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied:
Although the legislature, prior to the big Prudhoe Bay
lease sale, repealed that law, leases predating '68,
predominantly in the '65 - '66, contained in those leases
provisions for the discovery credit. These old leases are
scattered around Prudhoe Bay.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked how much money he was talking about.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied the discovery royalty
reduces the typical 12.5 percent lease for 10 years from discovery
down to five percent royalty. He noted:
It depends on their production. It's millions. It applies
to the one lease, not to the whole unit, but an
interesting twist here is that it applies to every
reservoir that's under the lease, regardless, as in the
Sambuca case where there's oil on different levels.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked what their basis for denial was and if it
was in the basic lease.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied:
The Oil and Gas decision was based on the fact that they
believed this represented just another component or
another pool of the larger Kuparuk Reservoir and that
every time somebody finds a different isolated pool, even
if it's isolated by pressure and even looks different
chemically, if it's still in the general structure of
things, the Oil and Gas Division ruled that it did not
constitute a discovery as we believe the original law
intended. It has changed. The rationale for why we have
granted some and not others is that, frankly, we know a
whole lot more about North Slope geology and geophysical
exploration. There's a thousand holes being drilled. We
just know more so that the discovery well royalty was
really geared to raw areas, frontier areas, where people
were drilling wildcat wells. We wanted to encourage and
reward discoveries. Just finding an isolated pocket of
oil may or may not meet the original intent of what we
think the royalty reduction was geared for.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked if the Governor was going to sign SB 164,
the over-the-top route bill.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT answered that he didn't know what
the Governor was going to do.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said he wrote the Commissioner a letter on the
Stampede Road Subdivision in Denali National Park. He heard rumors
that the department was going to give the land to the University of
Alaska, who would sell it to the Park Service for an extension to
Denali National Park. He asked if his department was working on it.
COMMISSIONER-DESIGNEE POURCHOT replied:
We are no longer working on it. Several people in the
department spent considerable time in July, August, part
of September working with the University of Alaska,
seeing if we could come up with a land package that would
satisfy their needs, might satisfy the Administration's
needs on a land settlement of some kind. We looked
throughout the state to try to find lands to accommodate
a number of concerns from a lot of quarters. Short of the
Board of Regents, at the DNR level and Administration
level, we came up with a draft package of lands that we
were in general agreement with what might meet people's
objectives. It included several townships, about 90,000
acres that are called Wolf Townships on state land on the
north side of Denali Park and the University was quite
interested in those lands. They don't have particular
economic value to the state through DNR multiple use
management. They have considerable interest, at least,
from the Park Service. It's part of their park ecosystem
drainage, there's a wolf pack that runs in and out of
there and it probably has value from a land acquisition
standpoint, as a component of the Park.
We were concerned about several things from the DNR and
state standpoint - access - and we wrote up a big caveat
on the Stampede Trail right-of-way potential rail access,
local uses. Anything that would happen to the land, we
wanted to have a writing covenant to protect existing
public uses of the area. So we had a bunch of that set up
that we were concerned with, but the idea would be, as
you stated, that could yield up to $90 million as part of
an endowment for the University of Alaska. There was
considerable interest. I would quickly add, this idea was
floated by the Fairbanks delegation and we stopped work
on this shortly thereafter.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said:
Back to my new classification of land - there are all
kinds of sneaky deals out there and he wants to lock the
land up, which is what the National Parks would have done
with it. Then there would be no snow machining, no
hunting, no fishing, no nothing in there.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said they didn't have a quorum at present, but
would make the motion to move the nominees' names on to the joint
session at the next meeting. He adjourned the meeting at 5:30 p.m.
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