Opinion ID: 2637028
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Alaska Historic Preservation Act (AHPA)

Text: Whether it was error to grant the Gordon Family Trust's motion to enforce the settlement agreement without conducting an evidentiary hearing depends in part on our interpretation of the Alaska Historic Preservation Act. [6] The legislature enacted the AHPA in 1971 [7] to preserve and protect the historic, prehistoric, and archaeological resources of Alaska from loss, desecration, and destruction so that the scientific, historic, and cultural heritage embodied in these resources may pass undiminished to future generations. [8] To that end, AS 41.35.020 provides: The state reserves to itself title to all historic, prehistoric, and archeological resources situated on land owned or controlled by the state, including tideland and submerged land, and reserves to itself the exclusive right of field archeology on state-owned or controlled land. Alaska Statute 41.35.230(2) defines historic, prehistoric and archeological resources to include deposits, structures, ruins, sites, buildings, graves, artifacts, fossils, or other objects of antiquity which provide information pertaining to the historical or prehistorical culture of people in the state as well as to the natural history of the state. Alaska Statute 41.35.200(b) states that [a] person may not possess, sell, buy, or transport within the state, or offer to sell, buy, or transport within the state, historic, prehistoric, or archeological resources taken or acquired in violation of [the AHPA].... (Emphasis added.) Finally, AS 41.35.210 provides that a person who is convicted of violating a provision of the AHPA is guilty of a class A misdemeanor, and AS 41.35.220 states that a person who violates a provision of the AHPA is subject to a maximum civil penalty of $100,000 for each violation. When are historic, prehistoric, and archeological resources situated on land owned or controlled by the state for purposes of AS 41.35.020(a)? WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD DICTIONARY OF THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE defines situated as placed as to site or position; located. [9] Thus, under a literal interpretation of the statute, the mere presence, even if temporary, of a historic, prehistoric, or archeological resource on land owned or controlled by the state would be sufficient to vest title to the item in the state, and to trigger the provisions of the AHPA. But where the literal interpretation of a statute would lead to absurd results, courts can interpret the words of the statute to agree with the intention of the legislature. [10] Here, a literal interpretation of the phrase situated on in AS 41.35.020(a) could lead to absurd results. For example, it seems unlikely that the legislature intended that title to personal property that qualifies as a historic, prehistoric, or archeological resource under AS 41.35.230(2) would pass to the state simply because its owner transported the property across state-owned or controlled land, and the property was only temporarily located on state land. We therefore interpret the AHPA to apply only to abandoned historic, prehistoric, or archeological resources situated on land owned or controlled by the state. Indeed, even BREXCO's brief states: BREXCO suspects . . . that when the Alaska Historic Preservation Act was adopted the Alaska legislature intended that the Act be construed in harmony with existing law, including the statutory and common law pertaining to abandoned property and escheat. Abandoned property is property whose owner has manifested an intention to relinquish all title, possession, or claim to the property. [11]