To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Kunaan Smyth and I’m writing on behalf of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, SILA. We focus on creating healthy spaces for Iñupiat wherever they are mentally, physically, and spiritually. We strive to make connections between people, culture, and land. Our members have taken a special interest in anything to do with oil extraction in Alaska, especially areas that impact Iñupiat communities.

The reason I am writing this letter is to ask you to have 24 hour, 7 day a week telephonic commenting available for the Coastal Plains EIS commenting period and any other commenting period during the Covid pandemic. This is because several people had commented that they had issues being included in the process both in the in-person pre-Covid meetings and during the virtual hearings. Some of the issues that led to this during the last commenting period include, but are not limited to, a lack of informing the community in a timely manner that is effective, technological issues, and decisions as to which communities should have hearings. We at SILA would like to help solve some of these issues and have come up with an idea.

Having a 24/7 comment phone number will help protect the smaller Alaskan communities during the covid pandemic, allow people who are working any shift to participate, and open the conversation to all those who will be impacted by these decisions. This will also prevent technological issues that may happen during zoom. If you have fluent speakers for Iñupiat and Gwich’in communities available during certain times, you can advertise this in the same spaces that you announce a comment phone number. We ask that you take this idea under serious consideration.

Sincerely,

Kunaan Smyth, SILA Communications Director