This report was prepared for Bureau of Land Management, Fairbanks District Office as part of the Kobuk-Seward Peninsula Resource Management Plan Prepared by the Staff of the Bureau of Land Management Division of Energy and Solid Minerals released in August 2005.
The Bureau of Land Management Fairbanks District Office is preparing a Kobuk-Seward Peninsula Resource Management Plan to provide a comprehensive framework for managing and allocating uses of the public lands and resources within the Fairbanks District. This planning process meets the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act through a detailed description of the alternatives and environmental consequences resulting from each alternative.
The Federal Land Policy and Management Act requires the Secretary of the Interior, with public involvement, to develop, maintain, and when appropriate, revise land use plans that provide tracts or areas for the use of the public lands. The Kobuk-Seward Peninsula Planning Area encompasses approximately 31.6 million acres in northwestern Alaska, of which approximately 13 million acres are BLM-administered lands. The area encompasses the area from Point Lay, south to Norton Sound, and from the Bering and Chukchi seas east to the upper Kobuk River.
It includes the Seward Peninsula and the eastern Nulato Hills, bounding the Central Yukon Planning Area. The planning area is divided into four geographic regions for this report: the North Red Dog, East Ambler, Central Omar-Kiana, and the South Seward Peninsula areas. Reasonable Foreseeable Development Scenarios provide a mechanism to analyze the effects that discretionary planning decisions have on mineral development based upon four alternatives. This RFD is used to predict the type, location, manner, and cumulative impacts of potential disturbance due locatable minerals extraction over the life of this
RMP. This report has been formulated to project and predict development regardless of specific land management authority (Federal, State, Native, or private), but concentrates on the high mineral potential areas located on unencumbered BLM lands and State-selected and Native-selected lands. This report is a continuation of the Mineral Occurrence and Development Potential Report, Locatable and Salable Minerals.
A range of four alternatives were developed during the Kobuk-Seward Peninsula Resource Management Plan process. These include Alternative A – No Action, Alternative B – Development, Alternative C – Conservation, and Alternative D – Preferred. Due to the diminutive amount of BLM managed lands within the KSP Planning Area, the level of disturbance from reasonable foreseeable locatable mineral activity will be minimal. If the maximum amount of activity is allowed (Alternative B – Development), an estimated total of 1,796 acres could potentially be disturbed. If the least amount of activity is allowed (Alternative C – Conservation), an estimated total of 38 acres could potentially be disturbed on existing valid operations. If reasonable accommodations are given to all parties, (Alternative D – Preferred), an estimated maximum total of 1,796 acres could potentially be disturbed.
For additional information on leasing on the Seward Peninsula, see (here).
https://eplanning.blm.gov/public_projects/lup/66967/84108/100712/Potential_Report.pdf
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