Whitaker considers annexing more acreage under trans-Alaska oil pipeline

The Associated Press

Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Jim Whitaker said his administration is considering annexing land from the Yukon River in the north to the banks of the Goodpaster River to the south.

The annexation could bring more of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and the multi-million-dollar Pogo gold mine onto Fairbanks North Star Borough tax rolls, bringing in roughly $8 million, Whitaker said.

“We’re reviewing it from two perspectives,” economic and political, Whitaker told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in early November.

He’ll know by the end of the year whether he will move the idea to the borough assembly. If the assembly approves, the matter would have to be approved by the local boundary commission, and would then go before borough voters and people who live in the areas considered for annexation. Hank Bartos, the assembly’s presiding officer, said the assembly would look at how much annexation will cost, how much revenue it will bring and whether the borough can provide enough services to the areas.

Bartos said annexation could pit the state against the borough over the state’s share of pipeline revenue. The state is allowed to collect up to 20 mills of taxes on the parts of the 800-mile-long pipeline that don’t fall under a local government, he said.

Curtis Thomas, a spokesman for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., said the issue would fall to the pipeline’s owners.