FAIRBANKS — An Anchorage moose hunter has filed suit against the National Park Service for banning his hovercraft from rivers within the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. In a suit filed Sept. 14 in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, John Sturgeon says lands submerged on the Yukon and Nation rivers, the two rivers he runs his hovercraft on, are state-owned navigable waterways. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 denies the Park Service authority to enforce its regulations on those rivers, he claims. ANILCA “made it clear in the text of the statute that for lands placed within NPS boundaries created or expanded by ANILCA, NPS regulations solely applicable to public lands within federal conservation system units would not apply to lands that belonged to the state of Alaska,” the suit reads. For more than 15 years, the Park Service abided by that restriction and did not attempt to enforce federal regulations on navigable waterways in national parks and preserves in Alaska, the suit said. But in 1996, the Park Service changed its regulations — unlawfully, according to Sturgeon’s lawsuit — to give it the authority to enforce federal regulations on navigable waters within the boundaries of its conservation units. “This revised regulation violates the plain language and intent of ANILCA,” the suit reads. A hovercraft is a boat that travels over the surface of the water on a cushion of air produced by a downward blast from a propellor. Sturgeon said he has been using his small personal hovercraft to hunt moose both within the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve and upriver from the preserve boundaries since 1990. The Park Service kicked Sturgeon off the Nation River in September 2007. Sturgeon said he was stopped on a gravel bar, fixing the steering cable on his hovercraft, when three armed rangers stopped to talk to him. The rangers told Sturgeon it was illegal to operate the hovercraft in the preserve. Sturgeon was ordered to leave the preserve and was told he would be criminally cited if he used the hovercraft inside its boundaries again. Sturgeon said he wrote a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in Washington, D.C., in October 2010 asking him to amend or repeal the regulation regarding the use of hovercrafts in the preserve, but he never received a response. Sturgeon wants a declaratory judgment that the federal agency is violating ANILCA and an order restraining it from enforcing regulations against the use of his hovercraft for moose hunting. The state, which has been involved in an ongoing feud with the National Park Service about enforcement of federal regulations on state waterways, is tracking Sturgeon’s lawsuit closely, Alaska Attorney General John Burns said Monday. The state is in the process of drafting a motion to intervene and will use the case to try to “very aggressively defend our states’ rights.” Sturgeon’s suit “gets to the root of the problem” concerning the ongoing battle between state and federal governments and “has a far overreaching benefit that goes beyond this single issue” of using hovercrafts in the preserve, Burns said. Sturgeon’s lawsuit came to light just days after a federal judge ruled in a similar case involving 72-year-old Jim Wilde of Central, who was arrested by park rangers last summer for failing to stop for a boat safety inspection while traveling through the preserve. Wilde confronted and cursed out the rangers, claiming they did not have the authority to stop him. Wilde was found guilty on three of four counts, including interfering with a government agent who was engaged in an official duty, violating a lawful order by a park ranger and operating an unregistered boat. The judge acquitted Wilde of a charge of disorderly conduct. Unlike the Wilde case, in which the state filed a friend of the court on Wilde’s behalf, Sturgeon’s case is a better test case because there is no criminal aspect to it, Burns said. “It’s a very clear case from the standpoint that the sole issue is one of jurisdiction,” Burns said. Sturgeon’s attorney, Matt Findlay, said his client’s case differs from Wilde’s case. “Mr. Sturgeon’s case arose prior to and independently of the Wilde case,” Findlay wrote in an email. “The legal issues in Mr. Sturgeon’s case are different than the specific questions of NPS authority raised in the Wilde case, and therefore the ultimate result in the Wilde case will not resolve the legal issues raised in Mr. Sturgeon’s case.”