Writer's Praise Of Anilca Ignores A Couple Small, Well, Huge Injus

[mineguy]

A recent OpEd by Clinton's former DOI representative in Alaska praised the Carter land grab known as ANILCA. The following letter was printed in the Anchorage Daily News as a rebuttal. Limitation of 225 words forced a narrow focus:

Deborah Williams' paean to ANILCA on its 25th anniversary omits the harm done and overstates the benefits of that legislation ("ANILCA remains success after 25 years," Dec. 2). There are two issues that Ms. Williams and the Beltway environmental lobby probably don't view as relevant but which have hurt Alaskans and limited Alaska's private sector development:

1. ANILCA shut the door on development of many mineral resources through reclassification of lands or by restricting access to legitimate mineral locations, including ANWR's coastal plain.

2. ANILCA disenfranchised Alaska Natives of the Ahtna region from their ANCSA land selections by enclosing most of them within Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. This "taking" effectively devalued all the lands so located and eliminated the possibility of mineral development.

Undoubtedly, some of the parks and monuments established by ANILCA are beautiful spots and worthy additions to our public lands. There is some economic good derived from the Park Service jobs, tourism and cottage industries that service the few visitors to these remote tracts of land. However Ms. Williams' implication that ANILCA is responsible for 84,200 jobs is ludicrous.

In the simplest terms, ANILCA was an overreaching federal land grab engineered by the national environmental lobby whose purpose was to undermine development of Alaska's natural resources and to limit Alaska's rights of self-determination. In both those aims, ANILCA has been an unqualified success.

---- Wesley Nason

Anchorage