From: Alaska Dispatch

by Patti Epler

As the state’s own coastal zone management program vaporizes, the Obama administration is quietly pushing ahead with its own initiative to manage the oceans, coastline and the Great Lakes.

In fact, the feds will be in Anchorage Friday, June 10, as part of a “listening tour” aimed at hearing what local folks think about the government program including its nine main objectives. The public comment session is slated for 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Z.J. Loussac Library. The listeners are in Barrow today at the North Slope Borough offices, 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.

You may have heard the term “marine spatial planning” and that’s one of the ideas behind the National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts and the Great Lakes. That’s where everybody who uses the ocean — say, the oil industry, fishermen, recreational boaters, just for starters — comes together and plans how to use it in a way that is sustainable.

The National Ocean Council’s strategic action plan also calls for ecosystem-based management, coordinated management and regulatory efforts, and more environmentally sound practices on land to protect the oceans.

Alaska’s Coastal Management Program might have been a part of that effort as it relates to the Arctic. But a political dispute between Gov. Sean Parnell’s administration and the Legislature was never resolved and the program is set to go out of business in a couple more weeks.

Joe Balash, deputy commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources and a key player in the coastal management debate, says the state has some concern’s about the marine spatial planning effort and how it’s going to work. “We were frankly counting on the ACMP to be a piece of that but now its not,” he says.

But oh well, Balash adds. “Whatever the feds do on oceans policy and marine spatial planning they weren’t going to care if we had a plan in place anyway.”

The Resource Development Council is urging its members to turn out for the Anchorage session and has provided a dozen talking points for anyone who needs them. The group wants the White House to remember how important the ocean and coastline is to Alaska’s economy and the nation’s energy security, among other things.