A program intended to balance development with environmental and subsistence protection along Alaska's vast coastline may end this summer because of a growing dispute between the Murkowski administration and the federal government.
Alaska's coastal management program, in effect for the past 25 years, gives local governments authority to weigh in on federal projects near their communities. It will cease to exist on July 1 unless federal ocean regulators "immediately abandon" their objections to the administration's overhaul of the program, Gov. Frank Murkowski wrote in a letter this week.
He sent it to a top official with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency that in late January formally objected to the governor's efforts to streamline the program. NOAA officials have cited concerns, including doubts that the new program could adequately protect subsistence and natural habitats.
Eldon Hout, director of the agency's office of ocean and coastal resource management, said in written testimony to the state Legislature on Thursday that Alaska's efforts at streamlining have resulted in "gaps" that must be filled before the revamped program could meet the minimum federal standards. He described what Alaska is proposing as the most significant change that any state has ever undertaken to the federally approved program, which dozens of states follow.
Critics say anti-development zealots use the shoreline program to block projects such as oil and gas leasing, logging, dredging, shellfish farming and construction in environmentally sensitive places, such as wetlands. But city planners, hunters, birders, fishermen, whalers and environmental advocates tend to say that the coastal zone program ensures that other interests, besides those of developers, get heard.
Soon after taking office, Murkowski issued two executive orders. One abolished the habitat division of the Department of Fish and Game and moved the biologists to the pro-development Department of Natural Resources. The other dismantled the division of governmental coordination, which ran the coastal zone program, and shifted the program to Natural Resources.
The governor later introduced legislation, House Bill 191, that ordered major changes in the coastal program by July 1.
Supporters of the legislation say the changes were needed to streamline a policy that, as Murkowski said in his letter, "evolved into a complex, confusing set of requirements which unnecessarily delayed projects in Alaska without corresponding environmental benefits."
Critics said there is no proof the coastal zone program has held up projects.
Bob Shavelson, executive director with Cook Inlet Keeper, said Thursday that he thinks the administration wants to get rid of the coastal program for philosophical and practical reasons.
"They want to strip away any meaningful oversight so that the executive branch can dictate the development policies in local districts around the state," he said.
Bill Jeffress, director of the Natural Resource Department's office of habitat management and permitting, which oversees the coastal program, disagreed. He said Alaska has many laws and regulations that protect fish, wildlife and coastal resources and that the shoreline program's requirements are often redundant. Simplifying the process makes sense, he said.
Alaska participates voluntarily in the program and will receive $2.6 million in federal money this year to run it, said NOAA spokesman Ben Sherman.
Tom Lohman, environmental specialist with the North Slope Borough, said the giant Arctic borough has used the coastal zone program to negotiate changes to oil and gas projects that might have harmed subsistence resources, including bowhead whales, a mainstay of Inupiaq culture.
Oil companies have listened to local leaders in North Slope communities because of the authority granted to them under the coastal program, Lohman said. In some cases, they changed oil projects to address concerns over noise, potential spills and monitoring, he said.
Jeffress said he and other Alaska officials plan to travel to Washington, D.C., soon to talk to NOAA regulators.
"The game isn't over yet," he said.
But he also acknowledged that the way the administration sees things, if the coastal zone program ends in July, it won't be a catastrophe.
"We feel the coastal and inland resources are protected by existing laws and regulations."
Daily News reporter Paula Dobbyn can be reached at pdobbyn@adn.com or 257-4317.
