§3171 — Title 16 Conservation | U.S. Code

Summary

The Secretary must allow a State or private landowner to temporarily cross or use protected public lands to reach their property for surveys, geophysical work, exploration, or other short-term uses, as long as the Secretary finds the access will not cause lasting damage. This covers places like conservation units, national recreation and conservation areas, the National Petroleum Reserve—Alaska, and lands kept for potential wilderness, and the Secretary can set rules and conditions to protect the area’s purpose and prevent permanent harm.

Title 16, §3171

Conservation — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act or other law the Secretary shall authorize and permit temporary access by the State or a private landowner to or across any conservation system unit, national recreation area, national conservation area, the National Petroleum Reserve—Alaska or those public lands designated as wilderness study or managed to maintain the wilderness character or potential thereof, in order to permit the State or private landowner access to its land for purposes of survey, geophysical, exploratory, or other temporary uses thereof whenever he determines such access will not result in permanent harm to the resources of such unit, area, Reserve or lands.

(b)In providing temporary access pursuant to subsection (a), the Secretary may include such stipulations and conditions he deems necessary to insure that the private use of public lands is accomplished in a manner that is not inconsistent with the purposes for which the public lands are reserved and which insures that no permanent harm will result to the resources of the unit, area, Reserve or lands.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

References in Text

This Act, referred to in subsec. (a), is Pub. L. 96–487, Dec. 2, 1980, 94 Stat. 2371, known as the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see

Short Title

note set out under section 3101 of this title and Tables.

§3171 Temporary access