Nome council sends seabed mining moratorium draft back to staff for a narrower rewrite

The Nome Common Council on Monday sent a draft resolution backing a moratorium on seabed mining in Alaska federal waters back to city staff for a narrower rewrite. The council took no vote after Mayor Kenneth Hughes called the draft's language inflammatory.

Kawerak supplied the draft, as Alaska News reported Oct. 25. As written in the meeting packet, it would have the council support a moratorium on the exploration, leasing and extraction of seabed minerals in Alaska federal waters until the impacts are evaluated and affected Alaska Native Tribes are fully consulted.

Anna Rose MacArthur, Kawerak's marine advocate, told the council a federal request for information covers 113 million acres off Alaska, including Norton Sound. Those are federal waters, beyond the 3-mile limit of state waters. She said the area overlays the Norton Sound red king crab nursery and essential fish habitat for all five Pacific salmon species. The 2025 summer commercial crab fishery in the region was worth about $3.54 million, according to a Kawerak letter to federal officials.

The public comment period closed April 1, after more than 90,000 comments, MacArthur said. The next federal step, area identification, has no set date. "We're expecting it to be quite soon, actually," she said. In the two Pacific territories that went through the process first, she said, the area nearly doubled at that stage. After that comes an environmental assessment and a proposed leasing notice, which gives the governor 60 days to comment. Leases could be sold in 2027 and would run at least 20 years, she said.

"Seabed mining commercially in federal areas has never been done anywhere globally in the entire world," MacArthur said. She added that Alaska would see no royalty sharing.

She asked Nome to join Kawerak and the Alaska Federation of Natives, whose convention passed a moratorium resolution Saturday. Kawerak's board adopted its own resolution Oct. 1.

Council Member Mark Johnson moved to pass the resolution, saying it asks for a pause so more research can be done, not to scrap mining altogether. No vote followed.

Council Member Adam Lust backed the idea but not the draft. "I support responsible resource development, but our biggest resource in Norton Sound right now is a proven resource. It's our commercial crab fishery," he said. He wants the language focused on Norton Sound and the city's interests.

Hughes agreed the focus should narrow. "The resolution as written is inflammatory and is one that puts people on opposite sides of a fence," he said, adding it should be written so both sides could work together. A city staff member said staff would rework it and bring it back.

MacArthur urged the council to move quickly, saying a resolution passed before area identification would have a better chance of affecting the process. Interior Department and Marine Minerals Administration officials plan to meet with tribal representatives in the region Nov. 17 and 18, and with the city that week, she said.