Land access restrictions.

• Author: Woodring, Jeannie
• Position: Industry Overview

Gold, silver, zinc, platinum, tin, coal and untold tons of other minerals exist in vast quantities throughout Alaska's 365.5 million acres of land. Finding and developing these resources remains a challenge.

Almost 48 percent of Alaska's land (174.4 million acres) is closed to mining. The land open for mineral exploration and development poses other problems: restricted access, conflicting regulations and ownership questions from the federal, state and private agencies managing the land.

The largest owner of Alaska land, the federal government, also places the most restrictions on mining. Almost 60 percent of Alaska's lands belong to the federal government, but roughly 75 percent (165.4 million acres) of this land remains closed to mining, an area equal in size to the entire state of Texas. Prior to 1971, federal land withdrawals that prohibited mining totaled only 55 million acres.

But the federal land withdrawals increased following the 1971 passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. ANCSA, which set aside more than 44 million acres of land for Native corporations, included a provision allowing the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw up to 80 million acres that he "deems are suitable for addition to or creation as units of the national park, forest, wildlife refuge, and wild and scenic river systems." Negotiations with state officials finally resulted in the Department of the Interior withdrawing 83 million acres of land and closing nearly all of that land to mining.

In 1980, with passage of the Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act, 104 million more acres of public land were withdrawn into federal conservation units -- areas almost totally closed to mining. By 1991 more than 165.4 million acres of Alaska land lay preserved in conservation units, a total acreage that equals the combined sizes of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. This vast acreage remains totally sealed off to mineral exploration and development.

"A lot of mineral exploration investment is now going around the world and not coming to Alaska because of our legacy of land withdrawals," says Steve Borell, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association.

Today, further restrictions on Alaska lands may come from bills currently before Congress. S. 433, known as the "Mining Law Reform Act of 1991," and H.R. 918, the Mineral Exploration and Development Act of 1991, contain many items that will add costs and...