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Report: Management of Mineral Creek Trails on State of Alaska Lands
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SUBMITTED BY: Paul Nylund - Senior Planner/GIS Technician
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RECOMMENDATION:
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Receive and file.
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SUMMARY STATEMENT:
In early January of 2022, the State of Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) South Central Regional Land Office (SCRO) contacted the City of Valdez Planning Department and informed us that there had been a complaint from a member of the public stating that they had been prevented from accessing the Mineral Creek Trails on a snow machine during a ski race event. Several of these trails exist on DNR administered lands, and the DNR did not have any record of authorizing the restriction of motorized access on these lands. The Planning Department provided the DNR with a letter of non-objection from the DNR dated October 29, 2002, which concurred with the request from the City of Valdez to restrict motorized access on these trails and the land immediately surrounding them. Following the receipt of this letter from the DNR, the City of Valdez passed Ordinance NO. 02-21, which codified the separation of motorized and non-motorized on these trails.
The DNR is concerned "that the letter from 2002 may not be sufficient to authorize continued restriction over the 80 acres of state land surrounding the Mineral Creek Trails, as this action was not subject to a full public process at the time", and that "in the long term, it is SCRO's position that a public process is necessary to authorize any use restrictions over general state land." In order to continue to manage these trails in a manner that is consistent with Ordinance NO. 02-21, the DNR is advising the City of Valdez to enter a Cooperative Resource Management Agreement (CRMA) with the state. A CRMA would undergo the same public process as any other agreement with DMLW and would serialize the resulting administra...
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