Legislature(2001 - 2002)
04/03/2001 01:35 PM Senate TRA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
SENATE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE
April 3, 2001
1:35 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator John Cowdery, Chair (via teleconference)
Senator Jerry Ward, Vice Chair
Senator Robin Taylor
Senator Kim Elton
MEMBERS ABSENT
Senator Gary Wilken
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
PRESENTATION BY RICHARD ODSATHER ON RIGHTS-OF-WAY AND
TRANSPORTATION CORRIDORS IN ALASKA
SENATE BILL NO. 44
"An Act establishing an Alaska Toll Bridge and Causeway Authority;
and providing for an effective date."
SCHEDULED BUT NOT HEARD
SENATE BILL NO. 45
"An Act making an appropriation for the design of the Knik Arm
crossing; and providing for an effective date."
SCHEDULED BUT NOT HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
SB 44 - See Transportation minutes dated 3/22/01, 4/3/01.
SB 45 - See Transportation minutes dated 3/22/01, 4/3/01.
WITNESS REGISTER
None
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 01-12 SIDE A
Number 001
VICE-CHAIRMAN JERRY WARD called the Senate Transportation Committee
to order at 1:35 p.m. Present were Senators Taylor and Cowdery, who
participated via teleconference. The committee invited Richard
Odsather to speak on rights-of-ways and transportation corridors in
Alaska.
MR. RICHARD ODSATHER gave the following presentation.
Thank you very much, first of all, for taking notice that
this program had been developed back in the early '90s
and I'm glad to be able to provide some information to
you.
A little bit of my background so that you maybe feel a
little bit more secure. My background is Arctic
engineering. I was born and raised here in Alaska and
educated up in Fairbanks and I've dealt with oil and gas
since I graduated from the University in 1970. Prior to
going on my own here [indisc.], I was with the state
pipeline coordinator's office in Anchorage as deputy
pipeline coordinator from 1990 through 1997. During that
tenure the commissioner of DNR was provided an
appropriation of money to develop transportation
corridors and part of that was because the Department of
Transportation didn't want to do it. So, we developed
that program and there's approximately - just to give you
the big numbers, there's approximately 10,000 miles of
route.
If you look at the one chart that Don has put together
there, it shows an overall map. The corridors are in
yellow and then on that are superimposed the selected...
[Mr. Odsather was temporarily disconnected from the
teleconference system.]
VICE-CHAIRMAN WARD announced that Senator Elton was present. He
asked Mr. Odsather to proceed.
MR. ODSATHER continued.
As I said, on the map, the thin yellow lines on there are
the corridors that were selected and there's about 10,000
miles of route there that goes southeast, all the way
down to Cold Bay, up to Point Lay, and across the top
over to the ANWR area. Superimposed on that are the
highly valued mineral lands and also the oil and gas
areas.
Our particular charge, when that was then to be by
Commissioner Heinz, who was commissioner of DNR, was to
develop no new routes. In other words, we had to go back
through the work that had to be done from the late 1800s,
early 1900s, what the Federal Highway Administration had
done and what the Department of Transportation and Public
Facilities had done and from that to make a synthesis of
routes that were multimodal. Multimodal - that means that
they're used for oil and gas, they're used for railroads,
they're used for roads, for all utilities and so on, and
the limiting factor on the corridors was that they could
be no more than a percent and a half grade, which is the
limiting grade for railroads.
So, with that in mind, what we did is we used those
corridors and initially, without regard to any of the
land ownership issues, terrain issues, [indisc.] almost
anything, was to develop a route for each particular
corridor that appeared to be safe, appeared to be
constructible, and so on. From that, then we got with
the folks in Fairbanks, through the [Division] of
Geological and Geophysical Surveys, which was part of the
DNR. They, for 60 percent of the routes, developed a
geology for five miles on either side of center line and
then from that we made a derivative map that showed, what
they call, the geology materials map, which to us, the
engineering team, means that's gravel or sand - there's
organics there even though the construction [indisc.] is
to build roads, railroads, lay down areas, airports,
villages, whatever.
The third derivative that we had coming out of that,
which is also in front of you, is what they call the
geologic hazards map. Those are to tell us where there
was glaciering, where there were avalanches, what kind of
permafrost was in the area. There's another map that you
don't have there which is called Geologic Hazards 2,
which tells us [indisc.] what happens with rapid movement
during earthquakes, where the earthquakes are, where the
fault zones are. And then there's another map that also
shows what we call Data Quality. If it was good data, it
would show up in a certain color. If it was not so good,
it would show up and it would tell us that the sources
that we were using - we had good sources or we had to use
information from satellite imagery, false color photos,
that type of thing, to develop our geology.
With that particular information, we also married in the
work that had been done by the Alaska Energy Group that
identified where there were dams that could be used for
hydropower, mine belt power, like up in Northwest Alaska,
geothermal power, say down in the southern part of
Alaska, and wind power, and let that tie into our overall
corridor program. In addition to that, then we also put
the port studies for the entire state of Alaska and tied
that in. We were apparently limited by the right of the
federal government to select the land and stake the land.
If you look at the state lands today, if you had a land
ownership map in front of you, you'd find the center core
of Alaska is where Alaska can really choose land.
Everything around all of the water, the border issues
around Canada, were selected by the federal government or
by the Native corporations. It had a limiting effect on
how we could effectively develop the corridor system.
With that in mind, then you looked at the legal issues of
how we could get there from here because obviously ANILCA
was one of the great contributors to limiting Alaska to
achieving its resources. In other words, it made it very
difficult to get there from here. For example, if you
wanted to go from Ambler up to Point Lay, you had to go
through federal land and part of our exercise was, that
if you remember back in 1957, much of Alaska wasn't
surveyed. It still isn't surveyed by the federal
government yet. But in order to get the land done in
1957, the federal government decided that they would use
a protracted survey. Now for those of you that are not
familiar with that term, that means that they use a
pencil, and they drew the section lines with a pencil on
paper and they considered that as a legal mechanism for
transfer of lands.
If you look at ANILCA, ANILCA recognized those protracted
surveys because later on the areas that wanted to be
picked up by Udall and so on had to be identified legally
and so it was done with protracted surveys. The federal
government did that and it was recognized. Using that
information through our legal people, we used that as the
method to go through the federal lands - through parks
and so on. [Indisc.] presentations to our AG, the state
attorney general - two specific issues. One was: can we
use those protracted surveys for access to Alaska's
resources and to tidewater and to existing
infrastructure? The second was that back in 1812, there
was a treaty between Russia and Great Britain that
allowed free access through the Pacific Ocean to Canada.
That means through the Yukon River to Canada, through the
Taku, through the Stikine, Bradfield Canal, all those
areas are legal access to Canada from the Pacific Ocean.
So we asked the attorney general for the reading on that
particular issue and, unfortunately, we never got a
reading on either one of them. That's something that
needs to be pursued.
The corridor system, in talking with DNR last week - the
Department of Natural Resources - has not really done
anything in the past eight years to assure that those
lands are being transferred to the state. All of the
lands were identified in a protracted survey, legally
identified, and sent to BLM electronically. They were to
transfer those lands back to the State of Alaska but
there's something going on internally and part of the
problem is that the corridor program has not had a
champion to assure that DNR's doing its job and that BLM
is doing its job.
Part of this presentation is to let you know: a) that the
study was done and that the lands were sent over
electronically to BLM for transfer to the state and not
much has been done since then. I don't know what the
status is. When I left, there [were] 23 corridors that
were to be transferred to the state as the highest
priority. When I called DNR, they have absolutely no
knowledge of what the status is.
I think it's important for the state, in its long term
view, to take on all of these corridors and get them in
the state's ownership because although you may never
build them, you will have the opportunity to use the
plates and even if you don't use them, at least it's a
method to secure the state's future. A lot of those
routes are on state land, for example. As far as I know,
that was one of the first charges that was going to be
handled by Glen Olds, who was an ex-commissioner,
[indisc.] and the state lands where the corridors went
through were never transferred into state ownership. As
a result, there are people that are selecting those
corridors for their use, like the Mental Health Trust and
so on.
I think that there's going to be a problem in future
development and it may cause those corridors to go in
another direction, which they may not do because they're
legally bound by federal constraints or that there's
going to be a high cost that's going to be added to the
corridor system. Maybe the best thing to do at this
point is, if there's any questions that any of you have,
let me know and I'll try and answer them for you.
Number 910
VICE-CHAIRMAN WARD thanked Mr. Odsather for his testimony and noted
that committee members may have questions that they will submit to
Mr. Odsather once they have reviewed the documents before the
committee.
MR. ODSATHER pointed out that the portion of the report that was
written in 1993 was sent to Representative Jeanette James.
VICE-CHAIRMAN WARD said he was aware that Representative James used
that report for the railroad corridor bill and that he is familiar
with the package that she has.
MR. ODSATHER added that there is a three-drawer file at the
DOTPF Division of Highways and one in Anchorage at the State
Pipeline Coordinator's Office that contains all of the maps, the
report and other information. He emphasized the need to get the
corridor project going. He offered to help in any way he can.
SENATOR COWDERY noted that he found Mr. Odsather's report very
interesting and that he would like to draft some legislation,
perhaps with the Senate Resources Committee, "to get this thing
going."
VICE-CHAIRMAN WARD stated that Don Smith, committee aide, will be
reviewing those files.
SENATOR TAYLOR thanked Mr. Odsather for his comments. He is aware
there is a three-drawer file cabinet filled with the summarization
that was done under the Hickel Administration in 1993, concerning
access corridors, but he would bet that cabinet has not been opened
in the last six to eight years.
MR. ODSATHER said regarding the route from Ambler to the Colville
area, the cart is before the horse because any land changes from
what was originally done on these corridors is going to cost Alaska
dearly, from what he hears from BLM.
SENATOR TAYLOR maintained that was intended because nothing has
been done in the last six years to protect any of the corridors.
He expressed doubt about the legislature's ability to pass a bill
to build a road that won't get vetoed.
MR. ODSATHER said the suggestion is not to build a road but to have
that piece of land available for future use out to 150 years.
SENATOR TAYLOR said he understands that. He said, "I've been
trying to get them to select the Bradfield Road and the corridor
that it lies within. They've refused to do that for six years, and
I've tried to get them to select at least an easement of state
lands selection across the Cleveland Peninsula so that we could
eventually tie Southeast Alaska together and they've refused to do
any of that."
VICE-CHAIRMAN WARD thanked Mr. Odsather and informed him that
committee staff would prepare three questions for Odsather. He
believes the corridor situation needs to be addressed and the
committee would begin work with the Senate Resources Committee. He
informed participants that SB 44 and SB 45 would not be heard
today. He then adjourned the meeting at 1:55 p.m.
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