Alaskan road divides conservationists, American Indians

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CNN's Ann Kellan reports on the timber and road controversy in Alaska
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March 6, 1999
Web posted at: 8:32 p.m. EST (0132 GMT)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) -- Cradled between the Copper River and the Gulf of Alaska, about 100 miles (160 km) west of Anchorage, lies the largest wetland on North America's Pacific coast.

The 700,000 acres of the Copper River delta are home to more than 16 million birds -- including bald eagles, dusky Canada geese and trumpeter swans.

"An extraordinary wildfowl population comes through here twice a year, and there's almost no place left for them that is this undisturbed," said Robert Ketchum, a landscape photographer who frequently works in the area.

But the Chugach Alaska Corporation (CAC) which wants to build a road through the heart of the delta.

CAC is chartered and run by Native Americans under a federal law which provides them with a 73,000-acre land grant. CAC wants to log timber from its coastal forest land, but in order to access the area it needs to build a road on an easement it was granted through the delta.

The company has been trying to get the road approved since 1982, and has repeatedly complained about federal delays.

An Alaskan congressional delegation tried to push through a 1998 bill that would have forced the U.S. Forest Service to approve the road, but the bill crumpled in the face of veto threats from the White House.

Environmentalists say the road would disrupt the habitat for wildlife in the delta, and have worked to heighten public awareness of the issue.

Opponents of the road want the federal government to pay CAC for the easement with funds set aside for conservation purposes. They say that would bring more money to CAC than the timber would, while protecting the pristine delta.

An economic analysis commissioned by the National Wildlife Federation said the CAC logging project would be unlikely to make a profit. The remote location and the sagging timber market would make it difficult for the venture to break even, the report concluded.

But CAC, which is still recovering from a 1991 bankruptcy, disputed that conclusion.

"We wouldn't be doing it if we didn't think we were going to make money on it," said CAC spokesman Bob Henrichs. "Ever since we emerged from bankruptcy, we're a much more profit-minded board."

Science Correspondent Ann Kellan contributed to this report.

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