ANILCA/Subsistence:

Federal lands in Alaska are unique in that they allow a variety of uses that would not be allowed on similar lands in the Lower 48. As part of the conditions for statehood, the State of Alaska has always had access to Alaska lands as a means of providing for the State’s economic well-being. In 1980, the United States Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980. ANILCA transferred over 100 million acres of Alaska land to federal ownership as new National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, National Monuments, and Wild and Scenic Rivers. It also added land to existing National Parks and Refuges and created designated wilderness. These new areas and additions were called Conservation System Units (CSU). To allow residents to continue to use these lands for subsistence, as well as for economic or other beneficial use, Congress created exceptions for these lands that allowed uses would normally not be allowed for these land-management categories. Two of the key uses provided for in ANILCA are subsistence use and the placement of transportation and utility systems on these lands.

Title VIII (Subsistence Management and Use) of ANILCA allows for subsistence use on CSUs as defined below:

"...the customary and traditional uses by rural Alaska residents of wild, renewable resources for direct personal or family consumption as food, shelter, fuel, clothing, tools, or transportation; for the making and selling of handicrafts out of non-edible byproducts of fish and wildlife resources taken for personal or family consumption; for barter, or sharing for personal or family consumption; and for customary trade."(ANILCA Section 803)

Title VIII also has a provision that requires federal agencies to evaluate the impact of a federal action on subsistence. Known as a Section 810 (Subsistence and Land Use Decisions) evaluation, any federal project that affects federal public lands must evaluate the impact of that project on subsistence resources and uses. The project cannot be implemented until the evaluation is completed. Accordingly, the Angoon Airport EIS will evaluate the effects of the proposed airport on subsistence resources and uses.

As stated previously, ANILCA also allows for the placement of transportation and utility systems on CSUs, including in designated wilderness. Transportation and utility systems include roads, railroads, pipelines, electric lines, and in the case of this project, airports and runways. This unique process is spelled out in ANILCA Title XI (Transportation and Utility Systems In and Across, and Access Into, Conservation System Units). Title XI provides very clear guidance on the steps required to site a transportation and/or utility system on a CSU. The process includes evaluation of impacts, public hearings in Washington, D.C. and the local area, and independent evaluation of the location by each affected federal agency, as well as Congress and the President of the United States. A Title XI process would have to be completed as part of the Angoon Airport EIS process if any of the airport alternatives are proposed on Admiralty Island National Monument and/or the Kootznoowoo Wilderness. If this occurs, the Angoon Airport EIS project will require a Title XI application process that will run concurrently with the EIS process.