Native groups to sue over polar bear habitat

Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and the North Slope Borough said today that they and other Native groups in the Arctic plan to sue the federal government over its designation of more than 187,000 square miles of critical habitat for polar bears.

They sent a letter to the federal Department of the Interior today -- a federal holiday -- notifying it of their intent to sue. They claim that federal decision makers illegally ignored Alaska Native concerns when they made the habitat designation.

It's the latest of several legal volleys against the critical habitat decision made last November covering an area the size of California. The critical habitat decision stemmed from the Bush administration decision in 2008 that listed polar bears as a threatened species due to climate change, which is blamed for rapid loss of sea-ice habitat for polar bears and other species in the Arctic.

"This is a poor attempt to legislate climate change through regulation," said Tara Sweeney, a vice president for Arctic Slope, in a statement today.

Sweeney said the designation could cripple Native communities.

The critical habitat designation is being attacked from many directions.

Last week, the non-profit Center for Biological Diversity notified the Interior Department that it plans to sue over the critical habitat designation, saying it doesn't do enough to protect polar bears from oil and gas development in offshore waters that polar bears use.

The state of Alaska, in December, also notified the Interior Department it intends to sue.

Alaska Attorney General John Burns' letter to the department said Alaska's polar bear population is healthy and well-managed.

Burns wrote that the new designation will impose costly regulation on Alaska and it could prevent new development that could boost state tax and royalty revenue. It says the agency did not follow its own rules for designating critical habitat in many ways, including relying on faulty science and ignoring some of the state's input.

The Interior Department says that its designation merely requires federal agencies to consult with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure that development projects do not have an adverse impact on the polar bear population.

In November, the department classified 187,000 square miles of barrier islands, land used for denning and offshore sea ice as critical habitat for polar bears. Roughly 96 percent of the total area is in offshore waters of the continental shelf.

The designation exempts Barrow, Kaktovik and all existing man-made structures within the designated area, which extends from the Canadian border to sea ice south of Norton Sound off the western Alaska coast. It also exempts subsistence hunting for polar bears. However, it does not exclude undeveloped Native village and corporation-owned land.

The coalition of Alaska Native groups that plans to sue over the designation involves Barrow-based Arctic Slope, Bering Straits Native Corp. from Nome, NANA Regional Corp. from Kotzebue, Calista Corp. from Bethel, the North Slope Borough, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope and the village corporations for Kaktovik, Nuiqsut, Barrow, Wainwright, Point Lay and Point Hope -- all on the North Slope.

Find Elizabeth Bluemink online at adn.com/contact/ebluemink or call 257-4317.
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