From: ndallen@r-node.gts.org (Nigel Allen)
Subject: Conservationists Warn of Last-Minute Threat to Alaska Rivers, Lakes
Organization: Echo Beach, Toronto
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 10:10:07 GMT

Here is a press release from American Rivers.

 Conservationists Warn of Last-Minute Threat to Alaska Rivers, Lakes
 To: National Desk, Environment Writer
 Contact: Tom Cassidy or Randy Showstack, 202-547-6900,
          both of American Rivers

   WASHINGTON, Dec. 22   -- American Rivers and the
Northern Alaska Environmental Center today urged U.S. Interior
Secretary Manuel Lujan to avoid striking a major land deal with
Alaska Gov. Walter Hickel in the waning days of the Bush
administration.
   The state seeks ownership to the lands beneath over 200 rivers
and lakes.
   "The final weeks before a new administration takes office is not
the time to make precedent setting deals involving control over
nationally significant natural resources," a joint letter from the
conservation organizations states.
   "If the state is successful," the letter continues, "title to
thousands of miles of riverbed throughout federal Conservation
System Units will become ribbons of state-owned land.
Unfortunately, these rivers will then become targets of
state-licensed development, including riverbed mining, regardless
of the incompatibility of such development with the surrounding
federal protected areas."
   At risk are 12 National Wild and Scenic Rivers, 74 rivers and
lakes in National Wildlife Refuges, 26 rivers and lakes in National
Parks, plus numerous other water bodies within Conservation System
Units.
   "The State of Alaska is attempting the latest step in one of the
largest land grabs in history," said Thomas J. Cassidy, general
counsel for American Rivers, the nation's leading
river-conservation organization.  "This attempt, if it succeeds,
threatens to disrupt some of the nation's most significant
ecological, fish, wildlife, and recreational values now protected
within National Parks, National Wild and Scenic River corridors,
and other protected lands, and to unravel the protective mandates
of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA).
   "The Interior Department must assert vigorously the national
interest in preserving federal title to non-navigable rivers,"
Cssidy added.
   Three key U.S. representatives, in a Dec. 11 letter, advised
Secretary Lujan not to make a last-minute deal about these rivers.
   "[C]laims such as those asserted by the state of Alaska are a
most serious matter, involving not only very important natural
resources and values but also legal questions with potentially
nationwide applicability," wrote Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.),
chairman, House Committee, Interior and Insular Affairs; Gerry
Studds (D-Mass.), chairman, Committee on Merchant Marine and
Fisheries; and Bruce Vento (D-Minn.), chairman, Interior
Committee's Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands.
"Therefore, the state's ownership claims should be very carefully
evaluated and should not be subject to precipitous resolution," the
congressmen stated, adding that "any significant decisions
concerning the state's claims be deferred for consideration by the
new administration."
   While statehood grants to Alaska the ownership of beds of
navigable waters, the state has asserted "overly broad and legally
bankrupt" definitions of navigability, says Cassidy.  "Given the
Hickel administration's dismal conservation track record, each of
these rivers would be at real risk from state-licensed mining and
development."
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