The Haines Borough Assembly changed the law to delay the next heliskiing mapping efforts until 2019.
However, it also grandfathered in two existing applications to expand helicopter-skiing zones, allowing the borough to decide their fates in the next several months.
On Tuesday, the assembly took two actions regarding applications to expand heliskiing zones.
First, the assembly voted 5-1 to legally lock in a three-year waiting period between times when heliskiing companies can request to change where skiing is allowed. Until then, the borough’s three-year waiting period had been more of a strong policy guideline. Assembly member Tresham Gregg cast the nay vote.
That means that the next round of applications will be allowed in 2019.
Assembly members Margaret Friedenauer and Mike Case said the borough has not tried a legal three-year waiting period yet, and they want to see how it works before discussing other changes to the wait time.
Second, the assembly voted 4-2 to allow two existing applications from SEABA and Alaska Heliskiing to be studied and considered this year or in early 2017. The two firms want to expand several of their legally allowed zones.
The assembly’s rationale was that the two firms had turned in their applications on time and in good faith by a May 31 deadline before the new three-year-waiting-period law was nailed down. Assembly members Ron Jackson and Gregg dissented.
Borough Manager Bill Seward will appoint a heliskiing committee to study and make recommendations on the requests. Those recommendations could be made by the end of this year, or might be delayed until the spring of 2017.
The delay would be because the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has been capturing mountain goats in the Haines and Skagway areas and attaching radio collars to them to map out their habitats since 2010. More than 60 mountain goats have been tagged.
The fish and game department’s report on that study’s results is expected to be made public next spring. Eric Holle, president of Lynn Canal Conservation, suggested that the heliskiing committee hold off on its recommendations until that study’s results are known.
He contended that neither heliskiing business is in financial danger if the decisions are delayed until next spring. And Holle contended if the heliskiing committee’s recommendations are made prior to the release of the mountain goat study, then the borough could possibly be locked into a goat-threatening heliskiing map until 2019.
However, assembly member George Campbell objected to the heliskiing committee taking until next spring to make its recommendations. Campbell said: “I’m not willing to stop an entire industry in order for Fish and Game to get its job done.”