 |
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
||
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
Topical Issues and Controversies
Natural Gas Pipeline
The State of Alaska favors the Alaska Highway route for a proposed natural gas pipeline to deliver gas to Alberta and the Lower 48 states. The Alaska Highway route would create jobs in Alaska, provide natural gas to Alaska communities and follow an existing right-of-way without the environmental risks of a Beaufort Sea route. The Alaska Highway pipeline would go from Prudhoe to Fairbanks and then follow the highway east to the Yukon Territory, British Columbia and Alberta. The Northwest Territories prefers an Alaska-Canada Beaufort Sea pipeline to its MacKenzie Delta gas fields and than have a single pipeline system deliver Alaska and Canadian gas to Alberta. A third proposal calls for an all-Alaska route from the North Slope to Valdez or to a Cook Inlet port on the Kenai Peninsula. There have also been suggestions that there is enough gas to support more than one pipeline. The Canadian government is officially neutral on the routes.
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The State of Alaska supports environmentally sound development of ANWR oil reserves, which geologists believe lie beneath the coastal plain of the refuge. The Canadian government opposes ANWR development on environmental grounds. It would take an act of Congress to permit drilling in the refuge. Among those opposed to oil activities in the refuge are the Gwichin Indians, who live on both sides of the border in northeast Alaska and northwest Canadian arctic communities on the edge of the refuge. The Gwichin lead a subsistence way of life and depend on the Porcupine caribou herd, which migrates across the Alaska-Yukon border.
Tulsequah Chief Mine, B.C.
The State of Alaska opposes development of the Tulsequah Chief mine in British Columbia east of Juneau as a potential environmental threat to Alaska fisheries. The state and Alaska fishing interests fear that the mine could pollute the Taku River watershed and harm the fishing grounds. The Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game has led the opposition to this near-border project and registered its concerns with U.S. and Canadian officials. Canadian mining interests have maintained that the mine can be put into operation without causing harm to the environment or the fishery. The dispute remains unresolved, but the new British Columbia provincial government has proposed creating a forum of top officials for dealing with this and similar issues.
Fisheries
-
U.S.-Canada negotiations have led to a recent agreement resolving long and bitter disputes over Pacific salmon fisheries. The dispute put U.S. and Canadian fishermen at odds over how to go about their business. Concerns remain over the future health of fish stocks, catch allocations, escapement, and related issues, but the agreement appears to have returned the debate to fisheries management agencies.
-
Alaska Lt. Governor Loren Leman is the Member Designate of the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission, which helps fashion North Pacific fisheries policy for the United States, Canada, Japan and Russia.
-
Aquaculture is prohibited in Alaska, which is concerned about potential problems from British Columbia and Pacific Northwest fish farming operations, which could affect the health and integrity of wild stocks. There is also market competition.
Border
Long-standing but relatively quiet U.S.-Canadian maritime border dispute at the Alaska-British Columbia boundary at the Dixon Entrance, south of Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island and north of Canada’s Queen Charlotte Islands.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||
 |
 |
|
||||||
 |
|
|||||||