Governor acts on behalf of parks inholders

Gov. Frank Murkowski has jumped into a roiling dispute between some landowners and the National Park Service over access to private lands in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

Murkowski administration officials filed a legal brief this month supporting the Pilgrim family in a much publicized court fight against the Park Service over access to their inholding near McCarthy.

At the same time, Murkowski has written federal officials asking for a broader investigation into complaints from other landowners who say the park makes it too difficult to reach their homes or remote parcels....

The issue of travel across Alaska's national parks has been festering in some quarters since 1980, when Congress created more than 100 million acres of new parks and refuges here. Some wilderness residents said their born-free lifestyles were cramped by regulations and permits.

Congress had said Alaska parks would be different from those in the Lower 48, allowing for continued access by rural residents. But rules to define how travel would be regulated have been slow to evolve....

The state's May 10 friend-of-the-court brief in the Pilgrim access case, now pending in a federal appeals court, stakes out Murkowski's political position in a succinct five pages. It claims state authority over the historic mining route under Revised Statute 2477, an old federal law invoked by other Western states to claim rights of way over federal land. It also argues that the park has not imposed "reasonable" regulation on the Pilgrims as required by federal law....