By Tom Morphet
The Chilkoot Indian Association is seeking to insert language
into a federal defense bill that would allow it to receive the former Lutak Army tank farm
property from the U.S. Department of Defense.
Final action on the bill is expected by June.
CIA tribal administrator Greg Stuckey said tank farm language
for the bill was drafted by federal attorneys and by the office of U.S. Rep. Don Young,
R-Alaska, and stipulates that the defense department may negotiate with the tribe to
convey the 200-acre tank farm property to the CIA by Sept. 30, 2013.
The property would
go to a taxable, for-profit corporation run by the tribe, according to an agreement
between the tribe and the Haines Borough in 2007.
The borough endorsed the CIA receiving the property on the
condition that the borough and tribe agree to a development plan for the property that
includes the borough receiving “reasonable” parcels of land including
rights-of-way, utility corridors and water rights.
The borough’s conditions weren’t included in the
two-page document that would go into the bill. “Once we get the legislation passed,
we’ll work on the borough land selections,” Stuckey said.
Borough assemblymen in 2007 said they expected to identify and
make an agreement on properties going to the borough before the CIA received title.
The borough’s resolution supporting CIA ownership was based
on the tribe receiving title before 2010. The borough assembly unanimously endorsed CIA
acquisition, with members saying the tribe deserved the land because it was an ancestral
site and that the tribe was more capable than the borough of developing it.
The Department of Defense is still liable for cleaning up
contaminated groundwater and soil at the site, terminus of a Cold War pipeline that sent
jet fuel from Haines to Air Force bases around Fairbanks. A property transfer won’t
happen until the cleanup is complete, estimated to take at least to 2013.
Passage of the bill would launch
what Stuckey figures would be a year of negotiations over the cost of the facility. “They
have to recover fair market value for the property. That’s what the negotiations are
about.”
The bill language, however, would allow the tribe to use other
compensation, which might possibly include a reduction of price in exchange for the tribe
assuming long-term water-quality monitoring at the site, Stuckey said.
Stuckey said Young was expected to get the language into the
House version of a defense reauthorization bill while U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska,
would work on the Senate version of the legislation. Committee discussion of the bill is
scheduled for April.
Haines Borough Mayor Jan Hill, vice-president of the tribe, was
going to Washington, D.C. this week with Stuckey to meet with Young, Begich and U.S. Sen.
Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Stuckey said the trip was an annual one for tribal officials.
Speaking as mayor to a small group at the Sheldon Museum last
week, Hill said she expected the tank farm property would not be ready to be used for the
first few years of work in the event a natural gas pipeline is shipped through Haines.
The property has been discussed as a staging area for the
pipeline. Borough manager Tom Bolen said that a pipeline scout recently expressed dismay
the property may not be ready in time for pipeline work.
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