Exxon Settlement Trustees Buy Alaska Forest
12/1/98
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Title: Exxon Settlement Trustees Buy Alaska Forest
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 12/1/98
Byline: Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A panel of federal and state officials Tuesday bought
41,750 acres on northern Afognak Island in Alaska's Kodiak Archipelago to
protect the area from logging and help its ecosystem recover from the
Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The $70.5 million Afognak deal was the most expensive land acquisition
made by the Exxon Valdez Trustee Council. The six-member panel administers
the $900 million that Exxon has pledged to pay over a decade to settle
federal and state government civil claims filed against the corporation
for the 1989 oil spill.
"This area has extraordinary old-growth forests," said Deborah Williams,
special assistant to U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and a trustee
council member. "Old-growth forests are terribly important for so many of
the injured species, particularly marbled murrelets."
The parcel is also important for salmon, seals, sea otters, a variety of
seabirds, archaeological resources and recreation, officials said.
The trustee council has purchased several other large parcels of coastal
land to protect them from development, but the most expensive previous
acquisition was for $46 million, also for acreage in the Kodiak area.
Trustee council biologists and economic experts had ranked the Afognak
parcel as holding the highest ecological and market value of all land
tracts being considered for purchase.
The land's seller was Afognak Joint Venture, a partnership of several
corporations owned by area Alaska Natives.
Afognak Joint Venture has campaigned since before the oil spill to sell
the land for preservation. The company was planning to log the area if the
land were not sold.
"That would have been clearcut," Williams said. "So we truly protected
that forest and those threes that would have been lost but for the Exxon
Valdez trustee process."
Of the Afognak parcel, 5,520 acres will be folded into the federally owned
Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge and 36,230 acres will be added to Alaska's
Afognak Island State Park, the trustee council said.
In addition to the Afognak purchase, the trustee council paid $450,000 to
acquire a 76-acre parcel along the Kenai River, a world-famous site for
salmon.
Both purchases were endorsed by the trustees earlier this year, but the
deals required approval from Alaska because the settlement funds would
flow through the state budget.
Gov. Tony Knowles announced his approval Tuesday, allowing the purchases
to be completed.
In a news release, the Democratic governor likened the preservation of the
coastal parcels to the Alaska Permanent Fund, a trust account created with
saved oil revenues.
"These natural treasures constitute Alaska's other permanent fund,"
Knowles said. "Protection of these rich habitat areas benefit all Alaskans
by helping maintain strong fish and wildlife populations while at the same
time supporting recreational uses and traditional subsistence activities."
Including completed purchases, pending purchases and the Afognak and Kenai
River deals, the trustee council plans to buy or acquire protective
easements for about 650,000 coastline acres.
The 11 million-gallon Exxon Valdez oil spill was the worst tanker disaster
in U.S. waters.
(C) Reuters Limited 1998.