SB 230 MANAGEMENT OF PARKS & RECREATIONAL AREAS  SENATOR PEARCE announced SB 230 to be up for consideration and that they will consider a proposed CS, Luckhaupt/K/3/11/96. SENATOR TAYLOR moved to adopt the CS to SB 230. There were no objections and it was so ordered. SENATOR PEARCE explained that the changes were substantial and narrowed the focus of the effort to Title 41. It adds a section requiring the Department to give the legislature a list on an annual basis that tells them what designations of incompatible uses that would either prohibit or restrict the traditional means of access, what of those they have done and what their reasons were. It also further defines traditional means of access and recreational activity. Section 2 has a new subsection saying the Department may not manage as special purpose park land those areas not inside park boundaries as designated by the legislature. She explained that one of the reasons she introduced this bill is because Blair Lake is outside the boundaries of Denali Park. However, because Division of Lands transferred that Lake to the Division of Parks through an ILMA, Division of Parks closed that lake to traditional access (by airplane). This subsection keeps the Department from being able to take lands that have not been designated parks by the legislature and manage them as parks. Section 3 sets new boundaries for Denali Park. Number 264 JIM STRATTON, Division of Parks, asked when they were to start doing the reporting. SENATOR PEARCE indicated it would start from this point and go forward. MR. STRATTON said they have no problem with the reporting requirement. He asked if they are to report on all the parks or just on ones that were administratively created. SENATOR PEARCE answered all of the park lands assuming there are new restrictions. MR. STRATTON noted that there was a conflict between the intent of section 2 and existing statutes for Chugach, Point Bridgette, and Kenai which do give them direction to add lands outside of the park. He said there are no guidelines for Woodtikchik and Denali so they assumed they have the authority to do that. SENATOR PEARCE responded that the three parks he mentioned there is within the legislation which established the parks the ability for the Division to add areas or change uses. When SB 230 passes, the revisor would go through and change language in those areas they have legislatively designated that authority. MR. STRATTON said this is a management tool that is important for them to have in areas outside of the three that are listed. In addition to ILMA's they secure land that could be made available to expand the boundaries of the parks through management agreements with other government agencies, through gifts from people, and through purchases from cash court settlements, to name a few. SENATE PEARCE said that something like a land exchange the legislature would look favorably upon as they have a number of times in the past. The legislature should designate parks lands; it should not be done administratively. MR. STRATTON suggested that if the target is ILMA's, to rewrite section 2 to target them. He said they would like to retain the power to add acreage to a park that doesn't restrict anyone's traditional access. SENATOR FRANK commented that they haven't turned any of those down to date. MR. STRATTON asked if the intent of this bill was to disallow stand alone ILMA's from being managed as part of the park. SENATOR PEARCE said that was the intent. MR. STRATTON explained that the ILMA's they create they manage as though they are part of the park system so their park regulations can operate. He said the reason they seek ILMA's is to develop and create recreational opportunities like trail heads, camp grounds, boat launch ramps, etc. They feel they need to manage those under Title 41 as part of the park system. SENATOR PEARCE responded that if he gets legislative approval to add that land to a park, then he'll get to do it. MR. STRATTON said they are not added to parks right now; they are stand alone. They are called State recreation sites and they have been creating them administratively for 25 years. They are under 640 acres and they have not been getting legislative approval. He asked if he needed to get legislative approval now. If he does, he has very serious reservations about this bill. SENATOR PEARCE said the intent is to go forward from now, but they need legislative approval for creation of all parks. Number 406 MR. STRATTON said AS41.21.022 already allows for hunting and the use of firearms in all of the State parks so he thought section 3 was redundant. However, if the intent is to allow target practice, he would oppose that. MR. STRATTON said the language identifying incompatible uses changes the direction Denali State Park will be managed. For 26- years it has been managed to balance different uses and user groups from conflicting with one another. There is nothing that gives one use access over another use. He said there is a lot of public ownership of the Denali State Park master plan and it was that plan that set forth the aircraft closures that are behind this whole bill. He is concerned that they are changing the management mode for Denali State Park that a lot of people have bought into. Regulations under review right now in the Department of Law opens the park to recreational gold panning and they want that language reflected in the bill. Their intent is to let people pan for gold, but they don't want recreational suction dredges being used in the park and he thought that might be interpreted under recreational mining. SENATOR PEARCE said it is her intent after 26 years to put sidebars on the management of Denali State Park because some difficulties in other parks have arisen from overutilization. She said they will be getting more requests for restricting access and she thought the legislature should be able to make changes if it's desirable. Number 470 LEIF PETERSON said he is a bush resident and he objects to more use in Denali State Park because it will destroy habitat. He said dog mushing doesn't make much of an impact. INGRID PETERSON asked if this is a companion bill to HB 447. SENATOR PEARCE replied the two bills were introduced at the same time, but they are different now. Peterson said she thought if SB 230 was anything like HB 447 that it was just a Republican industry profit give away to big business at the expense of all Alaskans. She said a lot of public input has gone into deciding the uses of Denali. She didn't think the industry controlled legislature needed to be dabbling in that. She understood that Alaska Air Carrier Pilots/Big Game Guides are supporting this bill. She said that the only traditional access is mother nature. The way they define traditional access as motor use just destroys the natural environment. She said the Attorney General's office is reviewing the State Park Management Regulations right now and that should be sufficient. Number 507 Sarah Hannan, Alaska Environmental Lobby, said she wanted to talk about the Blair Lake controversy. She said that both the conservation community and the air carrier community were concerned about that ILMA addition to State parks and the closure to air traffic. She said she thought it was a good intention by State Parks at the encouragement of the legislature to be more cooperative with commercial development. She thought it was a special interest effort to accommodate Princess Hotel's interest in having a monopoly on the air traffic on that lake to accommodate their new hotel. She thought they did a bad job of it. She said they should follow what the statutes tell them to do because the policy is already decided at the legislative level. In an attempt to appease a commercial user there is a bad situation where no one is happy. Any time you limit an Alaskan to do anything, they are going to be upset. MS. HANNAN asked the committee to think about the extensive process State Parks needs to go through to come with a management plan that promulgates regulations that close things. To close some portions of Denali State Park to commercial air traffic and recreational aircraft landings while keeping open others. She said in the future we are going to need to regulate commercial uses in our State parks. Air traffic is going to be one of the great industries tourism will grow in. SENATOR PEARCE said for 26 years people had been flying into the Blair Lake area and it doesn't make sense for the Parks Division to close it to everybody. MS. HANNAN said her only criticism of CSSB 230(RES) is Section 4. She thinks the extensive public process that has gone into developing the current regulations that are out there for the new management plan of Denali State Park should go forward. There has been a nearly two year process with three task forces, with 50-odd people serving on those and hundreds of hours of public testimony taken. At this point, to repeal those regulations discredits the public process. She thought the legislature could encourage State Parks to immediately revisit those regulations if they view them as inappropriate. She said the controversy will not go away because we have put prime real estate into parks for the purpose of it being prime real estate. With increased use there is going to be competition for that air space and land. It will burden the legislature extensively to take those kinds of public planning processes away from State Parks. SENATOR FRANK said he appreciated the tenor of her remarks. ED GRASSER, Alaska Outdoor Council, supported SB 230 and had concerns with access being restricted by administrative orders. His organization is becoming increasingly concerned about the restrictions that are being placed on Alaskans and their traditional life style pursuits. TAPE 96-29, SIDE B Number 580 MR. GRASSER said the public process doesn't always work as well as some people believe. He said the advisory committee for Mat-Su Parks is made up mostly of people who are opposed to motorized access and, in many instances, hunting and trapping. They make sure the membership against motorized access are notified of meetings, but their organization is left to find it in the newspaper somewhere. SENATOR PEARCE asked which statute allows for gold panning in parks. MR. STRATTON said he would get that for her and he understands that most of the park system is open for recreational gold panning. They just haven't gotten around to doing Denali. JIM DODSON, board member of Alaska Airmen's Association, said they are not confused as to the intent of this legislation and they support it wholeheartedly. CLIFF EAMES, Alaska Center for the Environment, opposed SB 230. He said they felt that the real problem is not that there aren't adequate opportunities for use of motorized recreational vehicles, but that there are inadequate opportunities for quiet recreation which is an activity that is important to Alaskans and visitors. SENATOR HALFORD moved to pass CSSB 230(RES) out of committee with individual recommendation and the accompanying fiscal notes. There were no objections and it was so ordered.