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DNR releases draft North Slope area plan
Plan classifies land in categories by most appropriate uses; will guide activity on North Slope for 20 years; comments due July 15 Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources is seeking public review and comment on a draft of the North Slope Area Plan, which, the department said, will be a blueprint for activity on North Slope state land and waters for the next 20 years.
DNR said the plan will classify some 12 million acres of state owned and state selected lands and will define the management intent for all state land and waters in the planning area, which includes most of the North Slope Borough and adjacent areas.
“To date, there is no comprehensive land use plan for state lands on the North Slope,” the draft says, although there are several regional and site specific plans.
The plan directs which lands will be retained by the state, which should be sold to private citizens, used for public recreation or for other purposes. The plan identifies municipal entitlement selections and classifies lands which the North Slope Borough may select in fulfillment of its entitlement.
“The plan does not provide land use designations for oil and gas leasing,” the draft says: Since 1987 oil and gas leasing has undergone a separate planning process.
“Land classified oil and gas is land where known oil and gas resources exist and where development is occurring or is reasonably likely to occur, or where there is reason to believe that commercial quantities of oil and gas exist,” the draft says.
DNR’s Division of Oil and Gas will use the plan to develop lease mitigation measures, administer lease operations approvals and delegate authorizations.
Six regions identified The plan covers state lands north of Atigun Pass, and encompasses the area north of the Umiat meridian between the eastern boundary of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the western boundary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and includes offshore areas to the 3-mile nautical limit.
Six regions are identified in the plan: Arctic tidelands, Arctic coast, central Slope, Brooks Foothills, Dalton corridor and Chandalar, with lands further subdivided into planning units based on similar land characteristics, resources, use patterns, topography or other features, with a 105 land management units including 15 tideland planning units.
The plan assigns designations to units, frequently multiple designations, including: habitat, harvest, oil and gas, public facilities, public recreation, resource management, settlement, transportation corridor, waterfront development and water resources.
The designation of oil and gas “is used extensively” in the plan, the draft says, and “was applied to lands where known oil and gas resources exist and where development is occurring or is reasonably likely to occur, or where there is reason to believe that commercial quantities of oil and gas exist.”
The draft says co-designations, such as oil and gas/habitat, imply that while there is, or could be, oil and gas development within a unit, “the habitat values within the unit must be taken into careful consideration when adjudicating an authorization,” and stipulations must be imposed to ensure continuation of the habitat value or resource within the unit.
Comments on the draft must be received by July 15. The draft is available on DNR’s website at: http://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/planning/areaplans/nsap/prd/.
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