The plan emphasizes restrictions on surface activities, consultation with local residents, and coordinated scientific studies to protect wildlife habitat, subsistence use areas, and other resources. At the same time it makes approximately 87 percent of the planning area available for oil and gas leasing. Under the plan, important oil and gas resources, including those which may lie near the Alpine field now under construction just east of the Reserve, will be made available for leasing.
Stipulations protect surface resources and subsistence activities throughout the planning area.
The plan also protects key surface resource and use areas identified through the planning process by strict restrictions on surface activities and, in 13 percent of the area, through a decision not to offer lands for oil and gas leasing. Included among the areas receiving special protections are important habitat for waterfowl and caribou in the vicinity of Teshekpuk Lake, wildlife habitat and recreation and scenic areas along the Colville River and some of its tributaries, and subsistence use lands critical to local residents near Teshekpuk Lake and several rivers and creeks. Alternative A was the environmentally preferred alternative. But because it offered no lands for oil and gas leasing, the BLM determined that it would not be appropriate for adoption because it fails to fulfill legislative mandates to provide opportunities for oil and gas development of the Reserve.