§1618 Revocation of Reserved Rights; Excepted Reserve; Acquisition of Title to Surface and Subsurface Estates in Reserve; Election of Village Corporations; Restoration of Land to Elim Native Corporation

Summary

Most Native reserves set aside by laws or by presidential or secretarial orders are ended, except where someone else already has a valid right to the land. This does not affect the Annette Island Reserve created March 3, 1891, and people enrolled in the Metlakatla community there cannot get benefits under this law. Any Village Corporation can choose, within two years, to take full title to the surface and the ground under any reserve that was set aside for its people before December 18, 1971. If more than one village shares a reserve, all of those villages must agree. If a Village Corporation takes the land, it must accept existing valid rights, it cannot make other land choices under this law, it will not get distributions of Regional Corporation money, and its enrolled residents will not get Regional Corporation stock. Congress recognizes that about 350,000 acres were withdrawn in 1917 for Norton Bay and the Elim Village, and that 50,000 acres were removed from that reservation in 1929. A map dated October 19, 1999, shows a “Withdrawal Area” that is taken off public claim for two years from May 2, 2000, so the Elim Native Corporation can pick land there. Elim may select up to 60,000 acres in one tract, but the government will convey 50,000 acres of valid selections in fee, including surface and subsurface, subject to existing rights. Elim must file its selection with the BLM Alaska State Office within two years of May 2, 2000; the tract must be compact, contiguous, mostly whole sections, and next to United States Survey No. 2548. Elim’s choice cannot override prior valid state or private selections unless those are given up. Receiving the lands completes Elim’s land claim. The lands Elim gets will carry rules that travel with the land. Elim may use timber for homes, cabins, firewood, and other household uses, but Elim may not cut and sell merchantable timber or build roads to support timber sales. The law allows Elim to get hot springs if included, but limits commercial development to at most 15 percent of the springs and the land within a quarter mile, leaving at least 85 percent natural, and requires protection of plants and animals. If Elim gets land with parts of the Tubutulik River or Clear Creek, it must not allow surface use or activities in the riverbed or within 300 feet of the ordinary high waterline that would cause erosion or siltation harming water quality or fish. The United States keeps rights to enter with reasonable notice to enforce these rules, to help reforest damaged timber areas, to have public noncommercial access to hot springs, to do scientific research on hot springs, and to keep public trails and small one-acre launch/camp sites along the rivers (trails 25 feet wide and mostly upland). The Bureau of Land Management will reserve necessary easements, including for the Iditarod National Historic Trail if needed. Elim must put the same covenants and limits into any future deeds, and money may be appropriated as needed to carry out these rules.