U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate that would settle the long-standing lands claims of the Alaska Native residents of Alexander Creek, Alaska.  

The legislation would amend the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) to recognize Alexander Creek as an Alaska Native village, allowing it to form a village corporation and receive either land or compensation as promised under the 1971 law.   

“The legislation I am introducing today would give the Secretary of the Interior the authority to enter into negotiations to settle aboriginal land claims with Alexander Creek,” Murkowski said. “It gives the secretary wide latitude to find a just, environmentally acceptable and economically reasonable means to bring Alexander Creek to ‘approximate parity’ to the other more than 210 villages corporations established under ANCSA.”

Alexander Creek is located on a tributary stream that runs into the Susitna River near its entrance to Cook Inlet, between the communities of Anchorage and Wasilla. Because of conflicting claims on the lands around the traditional Alexander Creek site, the village was denied the same land entitlement granted other traditional Alaska Native villages under ANCSA.

Companion legislation, introduced by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, is pending in the House of Representatives.