FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) – The village of Anaktuvuk Pass seeks the removal of rusty fuel drums left behind by the Department of Defense more than 50 years ago.

Most of the debris is located on Native allotments or Arctic Slope Regional Corp. lands that lie within the boundaries of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. The Defense Department conducted research and explored for oil at the site between 1944 and 1958.

“People have gotten used to seeing them there, but it looks way out of place, especially in the summertime,” Larry Burris, vice president of the Anaktuvuk Pass tribal council, told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. “We’re looking forward to having that area returned to its natural state.”

The Defense Department identified seven different areas with an estimated seven tons of military debris to clean up. Most of the material is around Chandler Lake. The village 250 miles northeast of Fairbanks has asked the National Park Service for permission to use all-terrain vehicles and snowmachines to haul away the material during the next two summers.

The Park Service recently issued an environmental assessment of the project and is taking public comment.

If everything goes as planned, the two-year cleanup project will cost $440,000. It is being funded by a grant from the Native American Land Environmental Mitigation Program, an environmental program within the Defense Department that works with federally recognized Native tribes.

The cost is high because of the area’s remote location, said Ron Lynn, project manager for the tribe.

Several permits were needed to get the project approved and a survey must be conducted because the area is home to archaeological remains, Lynn said.

“I couldn’t believe all the permits we needed to get just to pick up some garbage,” he said.

Lynn hopes to start the archaeological survey as soon as Chandler Lake is ice-free, probably in mid-June.

Chandler Lake is a key subsistence resource for the village. Some elders in the village of 350 residents remember seeing planes dropping the fuel barrels from the air into and onto the lake in the summer and winter.

Some of the barrels broke when they hit the tundra or ice, spilling contaminants such as aviation gas and diesel fuel onto the ground or into the lake, said Bud Rice, an environmental protection specialist for the National Park Service.

The water has been tested and no contamination has been found. But some soil samples show the possible presence of “petroleum-related compounds,” according the Park Service’s environmental assessment.

“It’s so old, it’s hard to fingerprint and figure out what it is,” Rice said. “We’re pretty sure it’s from fuel, but we can’t say for certain.”

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Information from: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, http://www.newsminer.com