Chugach Alaska Corporation Intervenes in Roadless Complaint

Anchorage, Alaska – Feb, 23, 2001 - Chugach Alaska Corporation announced it is seeking court permission to join the State of Alaska’s lawsuit against the Clinton administration’s regulations banning road building on 58.5 million acres of National Forest Lands, including 98.9% of the 5.6 million acre Chugach National Forest. The lawsuit, filed in Anchorage Federal Court in January, seeks to permanently enjoin application of the rule by the federal government on the Chugach and Tongass National Forests in Alaska.

Chugach, the Alaska Native Regional Corporation for coastal South-central Alaska, owns more than 631,000 acres of land and mineral rights within the Chugach National Forest, making it by far the largest private landowner within the nation’s second largest National Forest. Chugach obtained its landholdings within the Forest under provisions of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which also guarantees private landowners access across federal lands and bars the Forest Service from establishing wilderness areas within the Chugach and Tongass National Forests.

Chugach, along with numerous other stakeholders, spent three years participating in the Chugach National Forest Plan Revision process to ensure that the Forest would be managed in accordance with the federal government’s promises made in ANILCA, both to private property owners and to the public at large. “The Roadless rule is an insult to everyone who participated in the Plan revision process and a flagrant violation of the federal government’s commitments to Alaska under ANILCA,” said Sheri Buretta, Chugach’s Chairman of the Board.

According to Rick Rogers, Chugach’s Vice President of Lands, Resources and Tourism, “the Roadless rule effectively terminates the ongoing Forest planning process by dictating only one possible land use for 98.9% of the Forest.”

Contact: Rick Rogers, Chugach Alaska Corporation Vice-President of Lands, Resources and Tourism, at 261-0343 if you have any questions.