About the Alaska Coastal Managent Program (ACMP)

What is the Coastal Zone Management Program?

What is the North Slope Borough's role in this?

The purpose of this site

What is the Coastal Zone Management Program?

Coastal management is a joint planning and management effort by local, state, and federal governments and the private sector to manage coastal resources and to promote their wise and balanced use. In 1972, recognizing the national need for a coordinated governmental approach to the balanced use of coastal resources, Congress passed the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA). The federal program was designed to assist states in exercising their management responsibilities over land and water resources through the development and implementation of state management programs.

Alaska exhibited intense pressures on its coastal resources, which prompted Congress to enact the CZMA. The size and diversity of Alaska’s coastal area and wealth of coastal resources required specially adapted organizational arrangements for coastal management. Those specialized needs were reflected in the passage of the Alaska Coastal Management Act of 1977 (AS44.19.891-894 and 46.40), which provided for the state coastal management program based on the partnership of shared state and local management responsibilities for coastal areas and resources.

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What is the North Slope Borough's role in this?

The North Slope Borough developed a coastal management program to enhance its ability to manage coastal resources and to plan for balanced uses. The North Slope Borough Coastal Management Program, together with the comprehensive plan, land use ordinance, subdivision ordinance and the Geographic Information System Division of the Borough's Planning Department comprise the basis and structure needed to resolve land use and resource management issues in coastal arctic Alaska. The North Slope Borough Coastal Management Program attempts to resolve coastal resource use conflicts while providing for both future growth and conservation.

An approved coastal management program improves decisions regarding resource use, subsistence activities, village growth and industrial development along the coast. These decisions are based upon a wide range of things, including knowledge of existing biological, physical and socioeconomic conditions. An understanding of the alternatives to various resource uses is extremely important to implementing an effective coastal management program.

The approved North Slope Borough Coastal Management Program sets policy for local, state, and federal decisions regarding coastal development. The Borough and State permitting agencies are now implementing the coastal management program for actions requiring federal, state or local permits, which are subject to consistency with the coastal management program.

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The purpose of this site

This Web site is intended to inform people about the North Slope Borough's Coastal Management program. It is designed to explain the impacts and benefits of development along the coast. In addition, it is meant to be part of the information-gathering process and to assist individuals to participate in the ACMP program. It also provides an avenue for responses that may be used in the review of projects on the North Slope.

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