Murkowski asks for 1980 ANWR map

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has weighed in on the state of Alaska’s request for conveyance to the state of some 20,000 acres on the western boundary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, asking that the Department of the Interior produce a map referenced in the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

Gov. Sean Parnell requested conveyance of the acreage in mid-October (see story in Oct. 26 issue), citing a review of the western boundary of ANWR which the state began in 2011, following receipt of bids for tracts on tidal and submerged lands at the state-federal boundary at an annual areawide oil and gas lease sale.

“This issue centers on what waters are part of the Canning River, which has long been designated and reaffirmed as the western boundary of the Arctic coastal plain,” Murkowski wrote in an Oct. 30 letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewel.

In her letter Murkowski said the state believes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages ANWR, “has effectively re-designated the separate Staines River, which empties into the Beaufort Sea several miles from the Canning River, as a channel of the Canning, thereby shifting nearly 20,000 acres of the coastal plain lying between the streams into the refuge.”

Murkowski said Interior “could take a major step toward resolving the controversy” by producing the 1980 map defining ANWR which was incorporated into ANILCA by reference. “In 2005, the last time I requested the original 1980 map, the Department could not produce it,” Murkowski said.

- Kristen Nelson