Habitat Management Stays With DNR

By Elizabeth Bluemink, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Feb. 9–Gov. Sarah Palin has rejected a request from the state fisheries board to put the Habitat Division back in the Department of Fish and Game.

The board voted unanimously in December to ask Palin to remove the Habitat Division, which manages fish and wildlife habitat. It was moved to the Department of Natural Resources in 2003. Removing Habitat Division biologists from Fish and Game was one of former Gov. Frank Murkowski’s more controversial executive orders. When he announced the switch, Murkowski accused Habitat employees of delaying resource development in Alaska, on projects ranging from a proposed golf course in Juneau to a hydroelectric project near the Taku River.

Palin said in a Thursday letter to Board of Fisheries Chairman Mel Morris that she had “carefully evaluated the track record” of DNR’s Office of Habitat Managment and Permitting and concluded that DNR is doing a satisfactory job.

“My commissioners of (Fish and Game) and DNR both concur with my assessment,” Palin wrote in the letter.

Others still are pushing to restore the Habitat division to Fish and Game. They include two Anchorage Democrats, Reps. Les Gara and Harry Crawford, who filed a bill in the Legislature requiring the transfer of fish and wildlife permitting duties to Fish and Game.

House Bill 41 is scheduled for a hearing in Juneau next week.

Reporter Elizabeth Bluemink can be reached at ebluemink@adn.com.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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