The U. S. government plans to demolish Cooper Island in the Canadian Plover Group off Point Barrow, Alaska, without the consent of the Canadian government, it was reported by Carl Olson, Chairman of State Department Watch, a foreign policy watchdog group headquartered in Washington, D. C.   The U.  S. Bureau of Land Management confessed in a letter of November 10, 2004, that it had no record of American assertion of sovereignty over Cooper Island.

            The Alaska Legislature urged the U. S. Department of State in 1999 to negotiate maritime boundaries with Canada over several locations including the Plover Group, but the State Department has not yet opened negotiations.

            Without consulting with the State Department, the Army Corps of Engineers has put forth a plan to mine most of the gravel of low lying Cooper Island, possibly obliterating it entirely.  Termed the “Coastal Storm Damage Reduction Project”, the Corps proposes taking up to 1,500,000 cubic yards of gravel to build up the west beach area of the town of Barrow. (www.poa.usace.army.mil/en/cw/barrowSDR/barrow.htm)

The British discovered and annexed the Plover Group of islands on August 2, 1850, under Commander Thomas E. L. Moore of H.M.S. Plover.   The Plovers were turned over to Canada in 1880.  If  Cooper Island is eliminated, then so is the 200-mile Canadian exclusive economic zone which extends from it.  The exclusive economic zone entitles a country to use the fishery and seabed resources within it.  The area north of Barrow holds great oil potential as being close to the North Slope of Alaska, which is the largest oil field in the United States.

            Anticipating cross-border problems such as this at the southern and northern ends of the state, Representative John Coghill Jr. (R-Fairbanks) sponsored House Joint Resolution 26 in 1999.  It passed by nearly unanimous votes in both houses, and Governor Tony Knowles signed it into force.

Acccording to HJR 26, “Alaska has the potential to have coterminous maritime boundaries with the federal government at the northern  coastal boundary in the Arctic Ocean, the seaward boundary with the Plover Islands in the Arctic Ocean, and the southern coastal boundary in the Pacific Ocean, including Dixon Entrance.”  The resolution urged “the federal government to pursue discussions with the government of Canada for the purpose of establishing maritime boundaries with Alaska” and “to include representatives of Alaska on the negotiating team.” (Copy of HJR 26 below.) (http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/get_bill_text.asp?hsid=HJR026B&session=21)

So far, the State Department has done nothing.  Senators Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski and Congressman Don Young have not yet urged the State Department to act.   “We hope they will quickly correct this embarrassing failure,” stated Olson.