A state decision is anticipated within the next few weeks on whether proposed oil and gas exploration, which lies southeast of Cordova in the Controller Bay and Katalla area in the Bering River and Copper River Delta estuary and watershed region.
The State Division of Oil and Gas continues to work on the request from Cassandra Energies for an exploration permit in the Katalla region, under the program established under the Alaska Land Act (AS 38.05.131), said Dan Saddler, spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources. They are working on best interest findings and hope to make a final decision in the next few weeks, Saddler confirmed Tuesday, Aug. 11.
The project is opposed by both the Eyak Preservation Council and commercial fisheries interests because the region is a critical area for wild salmon commercial and subsistence harvesters and has indigenous cultural sites of significance to the Eyak, Tlingit, Aleut and Chugach tribes. The region is also important as a wild herring revitalization area and part of the path of the largest annual bird migration in the world, with some 20 million shorebirds and waterfowl of the Pacific flyway passing through, according to Carol Hoover, executive director of the EPC.
Preliminary findings of the proposed project issued earlier found that the project was in the best interest of the state.
The sought-after exploration license would cover some 65,773 acres both onshore and offshore surrounding Kanak Island from Point Martin south to the Okalee Spit in Controller Bay, an area which overlaps the Copper River Delta State Critical Habitat Area.
Hoover said an email she received from DNR stated that public comments on the proposed project would be made available to EPC and they were, a total of 152 public comments, and all but one, were opposed to the Cassandra Energy project. The only comment for the exploration was from John Shively, a past executive of the Pebble Partnership, which supports development of a large copper, gold and molybdenum project abutting the Bristol Bay watershed in Southwest Alaska. Shively, who first came to Alaska as a VISTA volunteer in 1965, also served as an officer in NANA Regional Corp., and held several executive positions in state government before joining the Canadian mining conglomerate subsidiary backing the Pebble mine.
Cassandra Energy has been trying since 2015 to get the permit
Cordova District Fishermen United also opposes the project, on grounds it is just wrong for coastal communities.
CDFU executive director Chelsea Haisman said in a letter to the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas last winter that “issuing a license for this area would place unnecessary risk on small and primarily rural business owners and regional stakeholders that would bear the burden of loss in the event of an oil spill or blowout.”
