Oil, Gas Development
Dear Editor: Earlier this year, the Trump Administration released the 2019-2024 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Draft Proposed Program. The DPP proposes to offer all areas of the Alaska coastline from the Beaufort Sea to Southeast Alaska for oil and gas leasing, with the exception of Bristol Bay. The DPP is the first stage of the OCS leasing process for regulating offshore oil and gas activities, and it determines which areas will be made available for leasing and establish a sale schedule.
Comments on the areas offered for lease are open until March 9. The Department of the Interior needs to hear from fishermen and others who care about our marine and coastal resources about risking Alaska’s renewable permanent fund – our incredible fisheries – for non-renewable oil.
A few facts to consider:
The Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska planning areas encompass some of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems and together form the breadbasket of Alaska’s fisheries. Overall, coastal communities in Alaska account for 58 percent of all seafood landings and 29 percent of all seafood value harvested in the United States. Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea fishing ports in the proposed lease sale planning areas are eleven of the top 30 ports in the United States in terms of both fishery value and volume. Coastal Alaskans depend on these productive ecosystems for subsistence, sport and livelihood. Without question, offshore oil and gas development would increase noise, water and air pollution, vessel traffic, and threaten the clean waters and healthy ecosystems essential for fish production and marketing of Alaska’s fish.
Alaska’s governor and congressional delegation have recommended that the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska be removed from further oil and gas leasing consideration. Please support Alaska’s leadership in this request by submitting comments to Secretary Zinke at the Department of Interior before the March 9 deadline. You can submit comments on the internet through the Regulations.gov web portal by navigating to http://www.regulations.gov and typing in Docket ID: BOEM-2017-0074 under the Search tab. A snail mail address can be found on the ALFA website (alfafish.org).
Your message can be simple: I participate in Alaska salmon, halibut and/or sablefish fisheries. Collectively, these fisheries are worth over half a billion dollars a year in ex-vessel value alone. Please do not place at risk these productive fisheries, the ecosystems that sustain them, and the coastal communities that depend on them by allowing oil and gas development in the Gulf of Alaska or Bering Sea. I request that you remove all potential sales in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska planning areas from the Draft Proposed Program.
Linda Behnken, Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association
Maps
Dear Editor: What? What did I hear an Assemblyman ask about during the meeting last Tuesday? Did he actually inquire about maps? Clear maps? Readable maps of the Gary Paxton Industrial Park?
How about, I might ask, hard-copy maps with marks, and stakes on the ground, indicating the physical location of all those GPIP lots? How about color-coding on paper with a different color for the lots sold, those leased, and, maybe even identify the spaces still available? Layered maps, one on top of another, sharply identifying locations and current status?
Years ago – when I still had courage – I inquired at the SEDA office about maps. No maps in hard copy for the public. Then some lots were divided into “minor subdivisions” which handily avoided a lot of “expensive” problems. Many times since then, I have asked. Also I have cruised that magnificent property, looking, watching the changes. Puzzled. No maps. A few times a few survey flags were visible. Then they disappeared.
Last summer, I stopped one more time by SEDA’s office, and asked yet again. Still no maps. But, I was kindly informed: “Someone – out of town at the time – “was working on it.’” GPS takes time, you know.
All that complicated, “scientific” technology does not always work. I know, because when I first moved back to Sitka in 2009, I worked with the U.S. Census, and can vouch for the $5 billion boondoggle of the innovative “hand-held computer that was being tested first in Alaska. An A Number Fiasco. I shudder every time I think of the role that “census districts’ has on elections, and on lots of subsequent “economic” studies and decisions. I wonder now, was 2009-2010 the height of computer mania.
Or was it just the beginning?
May I volunteer to help hand-draw and color code maps of the GPIP properties? I remember the smelly dairy – and the delicious ice cream – during the 1940s, the beginning of the Pulp Mill in the late 1950s, and the startling, huge industrial complex that provided jobs, indeed careers, for decades.
Also, might I add a flower? It IS still a “park.”
Thank you, Steve Eisenbeisz, for asking about maps on February 27.
Sitkans, please note I actually saw a hard copy of the Comprehensive Plan in the Sitka Public Library. I wonder what is in it. Time to take a look. If only there was a table and a chair right there so I could open it up, admire and relish – a hand-held plan.
Nancy Yaw Davis, SHS ’54
