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Deadline extended for Yukon Flats land swap The comment period for a proposed land swap in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge will continue to the end of July Alan Bailey Petroleum News Staff Writer
Faced with concern from some Yukon Flats villagers and numerous questions both from local residents and from environmentalists, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to delay closure of the public comment period for a proposed land swap between the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge and Doyon Ltd., an Alaska Native regional corporation.
“We were scheduled to close on April 1 — it will now close on July 30,” Ted Heuer, Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge manager, told Petroleum News the week of March 21. “So that will give people extra time to view our evaluation of the proposal and think about it and provide input to us,” he said. Consolidate oil and gas prospects A land swap agreement in principle prepared by Doyon and the Fish and Wildlife Service specifies the shuffling of a jigsaw puzzle of land tracts, together with additional features such as the establishment of subsistence and public easements. The purpose of the land swap is to consolidate some existing Doyon oil and gas prospects with prospects on adjacent Fish and Wildlife Service land.
Doyon would acquire about 110,000 acres of refuge lands. Doyon would also receive 97,000 acres of oil and gas rights next to some of its lands — this subsurface acreage would only be accessible by directional drilling from Doyon land. The refuge would acquire Doyon full-fee land, appraised to be equal in value to the full-fee and subsurface refuge land acquired by Doyon. All of the refuge and Doyon land involved in the proposed exchange lies within the exterior boundary of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge.
Although two Yukon Flats villages support the land swap, several other Native communities in the Flats oppose the swap because they are concerned about the potential impact on subsistence activities. At a recent Doyon annual meeting a group of shareholders passed an advisory motion opposing the land swap. And six tribal leaders sent a letter to Fish and Wildlife requesting an extension to the deadline for comments.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has been consulting with villagers through a series of 11 public meetings.
“We’ve had a lot of comments from the public at those meetings — that they needed more time to review the proposal and they requested that we extend the period,” Heuer said.
Heuer also said that a Wilderness Society action alert has resulted in a flood of e-mails “requesting an extension to the comment period, among other things.”
“We’ve gotten about 6,400 e-mail comments,” Heuer said. Informal contact The Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t expect to hold any further public meetings — the plan now is to give people additional time to think about the proposals.
“We’ll probably do some informal contacts with folks in the villages and, of course, we’re always here to answer questions and talk with people,” Heuer said.
And there is no specific timetable of events, other than the new closing date for comments.
“We’ll wait until the public comment period is over and we’ll sit down and review the comments,” Heuer said. “And based on that we may renegotiate parts of the agreement in principal with Doyon — or we may not decide to do this (land swap) at all.”
Doyon also needs to decide on its position, based on input from its shareholders, Heuer said.
Meantime the Fish and Wildlife Service will proceed with the necessary land appraisals, to ensure that land of equal value is exchanged. The appraisals may result in adjustments to the acreages proposed to be swapped.
“We’ll go ahead with the appraisal process,” Heuer said. “We’ll start that this summer and have the appraisals done on the area that Doyon would like to acquire and the areas that we would like to acquire.” Doyon agrees James Mery, vice president for lands and natural resources for Doyon, told Petroleum News that Doyon fully supports the extension to the deadline for comments. Mery said that the documents describing the swap were not available during most of the public hearing process.
“Just on that basis alone it’s worth extending for some period of time,” he said. “It’s a complex transaction.”
In fact Mery thinks that there is considerable confusion about what the land swap would actually entail.
“So I think we need a little more time to get out there and talk some more to people and straighten out some of the misconceptions that are floating around,” Mery said. “There’s no harm in going a little bit slower here and making sure everybody at least understands it before they take their firm and final position.”
And Mery emphasized that the agreement cannot be finalized until after the end of the comment period.
“I think it’s important for people to know that we’ve always recognized that through the public comment period there may be some changes to the agreement in principle as well,” Mery said.
Mery doesn’t know when everything would be completed, assuming that the swap goes ahead following the comment period,
“We’re still focusing on towards the end of the calendar year or first part of next year,” he said.
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