Nome mayor calls Kawerak's seabed mining draft inflammatory; city staff will write another

The Nome Common Council took no vote Monday on a resolution drafted by Kawerak calling for a moratorium on seabed mining in Alaska's federal waters. Mayor Kenneth Hughes called its language inflammatory, and city staff said they would work on a resolution of the city's own and bring it back.

Kawerak, the Bering Strait region's tribal consortium, sent the draft to the city, and it was in Monday's meeting packet as a communication. Kawerak's board backed a moratorium Oct. 1. Federal officials are considering seabed mineral lease sales across about 113 million acres off Alaska, including federal waters in Norton Sound, beyond the 3-mile line where state waters end.

Anna Rose MacArthur, Kawerak's marine advocate, told the council that seabed mining in federal waters would be "very different" from mining in state waters. Federal waters are deeper, and deeper seabed takes longer to recover, she said, while nearshore waters are disturbed naturally by storms, waves and ice. She said the federal area overlays the Norton Sound red king crab nursery and is designated essential fish habitat for all five Pacific salmon species.

"Seabed mining commercially in federal areas has never been done anywhere globally in the entire world," MacArthur said. She said leases would run at least 20 years and that Alaska would get no share of the royalties.

The public comment period closed April 1, she said. The next federal step, identifying the areas to be considered for leasing, could come "quite soon," she said, and in the two Pacific territories that went through the process first, the area nearly doubled at that stage. She said an environmental assessment and a proposed leasing notice would follow, with Alaska's governor getting 60 days to comment, and that a lease sale is proposed for 2027. The Alaska Federation of Natives convention passed a moratorium resolution Saturday, she said.

Council Member Adam Lust said Kawerak's draft "probably needs some work." "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 asked for a resolution "honed in really specific to Norton Sound and the City of Nome's impact."

Council Member Mark Johnson noted that Nome has been "a mining town for the last 125 years or so." He moved to pass Kawerak's version, saying it asks for a pause so more research can be done, not to end mining altogether. He said he wasn't sure of the process, and no vote was taken.

"The resolution as written is inflammatory and is one that puts people on opposite sides of a fence," Hughes said. He said a different tone "would have allowed both parties to work cooperatively to seek a common resolution," and that a city resolution should be more narrowly focused.

MacArthur asked the city to move quickly. A resolution passed before the federal areas are identified would have a better chance of affecting the process, she said, because keeping areas out is often easier than getting them removed later. 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.