Planning Report

 

 

The Northwest Arctic Borough Coastal Management Plan Public Draft is ready for REVIEW

 

Kivalina Meeting

 

On March 23, 2005 Kivalina City and Tribe met with North Slope Borough on Conflict Avoidance Agreements (CAA) and Good Neighbor Policies (GNP) in the community of Kivalina, Alaska.  George Ahmaogak did most of the talking and several people from Kivalina asked questions.  The main items that George mentioned were:

 

  1. The feasibility study for the DMTS expansion project has not been completed.
  2. The need for Kivalina to put a CAA and GNP together with Tech Cominco so their subsistence resources are protected as much as possible.
  3. In the negotiation process with Cominco, Kivalina should request to see Cominco’s “plan of operations.”  This would allow Kivalina the opportunity to see if Cominco’s activity would interfere with whale migration or hunting in the immediate area.  This would also provide opportunity for them to negotiate activity timing by Cominco.
  4. The term “Conflict Avoidance Agreement” comes from the Federal Marine Mammal Act document.  The act requires that industry negotiate a CAA with each affected community.
  5. Bonding in the GNP negotiations for small accidents or toxic spills and large accidents or major toxic spills.  And also bonding for final close down and clean up costs.
  6. He talks about the importance of professional people (scientist, biologists, etc.) to be a part of the Traditional Knowledge Study for it to be affective for the EIS.
  7. The idea that no one wants to see these large industrial projects come into their area is the same in Barrow but now that they couldn’t be stopped, the next best thing is to put the CAA and GNP in place.

 

Kivalina seemed to be real receptive to NSB comments.  They asked many questions and expressed an interest in working with AEWC.

 

I was asked questions about Julie Anderson’s comments at the Joint Economic Summit in Barrow in February.  I told them about Mayor Roswell Schaeffer explanation of where she got her information and what should have been said.  He says that she got her information from a Traditional Knowledge Study and that it was the Kotzebue and Buckland hunters who over hunted the Beluga whales near Kivalina two years in a row.  They were surprised and asked why we didn’t tell them earlier.   

 

Platting

Since we have been operating in the planning office since last May 2004, we have completed about 15 plats for different communities.

 

Triple D Mining

NWAB issued several permits to Triple D Mining to move equipment from two sites near Dearing and Buckland.  The move to Candle started last week and it has been determined since they started to move that it’s possible that they were not forthright with the information that they gave us in their permit application.  We are presently evaluating the problem.

 

Land Selections

The land selected by the borough from the State of Alaska has been done, except for public review.  That will be happening in Fairbanks and Kotzebue in the coming weeks.

 

ACMP Issues

It appears that Governor Murkowski is about to throw out the ACMP program.  His office has called for a meeting in Anchorage on March 30th with the districts to see if they will join forces with him to turn OCRM around to approve the recommended changes by the State.  It will be a strange meeting because all the districts believe that OCRM is in the right on what the State should do.  Please find OCRM letter and Governor’s letter attached.