US Sec. of the Interior Gale Norton Jan. 22 finalized a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan that allows for more leasing in the northwestern portion of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A).
BLM plans to hold a lease sale June 2 for selected tracts in the northwestern corner of the NPR-A. The agency is accepting additional expressions of interest from industry through Feb. 9.
The agency will make 7.23 million acres of the reserve's northwestern portion available for leasing, deferring the remaining 1.57 million acres from leasing for 10 years.
Norton slightly modified BLM's November 2003 proposal. In response to a resolution passed by BLM's Alaska Resource Advisory Council, she postponed leasing in the Colville River Special Area until the combined southern NPR-A plan and Colville River management plans are complete. The agency has not said when that will occur.
Norton also designated 102,000 acres in the Kasegaluk Lagoon as a protected area.
BLM will include "no surface occupancy" restrictions that prohibit permanent structures in Kasegaluk and will issue other protective stipulations on lagoon leases.
Norton's action completes the second of three land use plans being developed for NPR-A. The first plan, completed in 1998, covered 4.6 million acres in the northeastern portion. A third planning effort covers the southern portion of the reserve, but no leasing guidelines have been determined yet.
Eleanor Huffines, Alaska regional director of the Wilderness Society, said DOI's plan weakens current environmental safeguards, because it allows BLM to modify or waive all of them on a case-by-case basis for "economic" reasons. In addition, it changes existing, prescriptive lease stipulations to vague "guidelines" set by the industry itself, she said.