Take Action. Comment Now!: Ambler Road
By Colin A. Warren
Public Comment Ending Soon:
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is in charge of issuing permits for roads that cross federal land. That includes the permits for the Ambler Road, a contentious road that will connect a proposed open pit mine in the Ambler Mining District to the Dalton Highway. Since this is a federal process, all U.S. citizens can let their thoughts be known about this road. Click the link below to make your thoughts known to the government before time runs out. The public comment period for this project ends soon, December 22nd, 2023.
Ambler Road Public Comment Link to BLM
The Ambler Road Project History and Facts:
From the BLM: “The road is not yet built. Your comment matters.”
At in-state public comment sessions, the “No Action Alternative” has been the most frequent choice of commenters, by a landslide.
The primary proposed road is an all-season, industrial-only access road that runs from the Dalton Highway 211 miles west to the Ambler Mining District. The road would cross eleven major rivers, several hundred streams, require over 3000 culverts, and cross twenty-six miles of Gates of the Arctic National Park, alongside several miles of Native land that includes Doyon Corporation land and Nana Corporation land, respectively.
There are in total three different routes proposed to access the mining district, only one of them not going through Gates of the Arctic National Park. There is also a “No Action Alternative,” which asks the BLM to pull all road permits associated with the project. Look at the map below to see the alternatives.
The primary route (A) and route (B) will cross BLM land, tribal land, and national park land. Alternative route (C) is the only one that does not cross national park land, although it is notably longer than the other alternatives.
No mine yet exists, although there are 1,300 active mining claims in Ambler Mining District. The primary identified mineral resources there include copper, lead, zinc, silver, gold, cobalt, and molybdenum. Currently there are no roads or waterways that connect the mining district to any ports or transportation hubs. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) and Ambler Metals are the main backers of the project, having spent at least $44 million on the projects so far. AIDEA claims the mine will create 3,900 jobs and more than $300 million in annual wages. More of AIDEA’s points and informative literature on the matter can be seen here: https://ambleraccess.org/
AIDEA originally applied for the road permits in 2015. The Trump Administration issued permits to build the roads in 2020. The Biden Administration suspended those permits in 2022, expressing concern for the environment and stated further impact analysis was needed on top of the one completed by the Trump Administration.
The Biden Administration completed the further analysis, which was released in October 2023. The Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) runs more than 1,200 pages. In the report, there was great concern expressed for caribou migration, salmon spawning grounds, sheefish habitat, and many other environmental concerns linked to the Native Subsistence rights of seven Native villages near or on the proposed route(s). The release of this statement marked the beginning of the sixty day public comment period that will end on December 22, 2023.
The Biden Administration is wanting to protect important wild places, yet it also advocates for domestic supply lines for the green power revolution, and these two desires are creating great political and economic tension.
There is a clause in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which basically formed the national parks in the state, that explicitly grants a Right of Way (ROW) specifically for Ambler Road crossing Gates of the Arctic National Park. The existence of this complicates any “No Action Alternative.”
Regardless of the findings of the SEIS, all three members of the Alaskan congressional delegation support the construction of the Ambler Road.
A coalition of Alaska Native tribes and environmental groups are fiercely fighting the proposed road. They include the Tanana Chiefs Conference, National Parks Conservation Association, Brooks Range Council, Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council, Alaska Wilderness League, and many more. Please consult more of the groups efforts and ideas on the matter here: https://defendbrooksrange.org/
The Tanana Chiefs Conference represents forty-two Indigenous tribes in the Interior of Alaska and, while most tribes in the Conference are opposed to Ambler Road, some of them support the construction of the road.
While originally Doyon Corporation had signed off on a ROW agreement for the Ambler Road, it recently rescinded the ROW. There is thought that this was done because of disagreements between AIDEA and Doyon over oil drilling sites on the North Slope. But lack of agreement from Doyon definitely complicates efforts to complete the road.
As BLM processes all these comments and new information, they have moved back their decision date for the road permits to “mid 2024.”
Fairbank’s Public Comment Night:
In early November, BLM hosted the first of twelve public meetings around the state on the Ambler Road here in Fairbanks. Anyone was allowed three minutes of microphone time to state their opinion which would be recorded and taken into consideration by BLM as they gestate over their decision regarding permits for the next several months. Very few commenters stuck to the three minute window. This was polite on the part of BLM, especially to the Native elders that spoke, but also a bit exhausting because the meeting lasted beyond the proposed end time of 9 PM, all the way until a little after 10:30 PM. Which is fine– it’s an important topic for our state, and important for constituents to share opinions –but most of the speakers were saying the same things. Of the forty three speakers, all of them except two (!) were against the proposed Ambler Road and asked BLM to choose the No Action Alternative when deciding the fate of the road. The two that were in favor of the road both work for companies that will profit massively from its building.
The meeting was at Raven Landing and the parking lot was full. After parking in what seemed like an illegal spot, I shuffled cautiously across the slippery pavement and, as I approached the door, was offered a “No Ambler Road” pin by several young women. When I said “No, thank you,” they seemed suspicious and responded with, “Fair, fair.” In reality, I was thinking of journalistic integrity and the fact the pin would’ve just ended up in the trash anyway.
Inside, the room was bubbling with people catching up and sharing opinions. I signed in and swam between the throngs of people and the many blown-up maps on tripods and tables covered in handouts. I found a seat in the middle, and quickly introduced myself to my neighbor, Jeff San Juan, who also happened to be the Ambler Road program manager for AIDEA and one of the two men that spoke in favor of the road. He was dressed sharper than most, in a crisp blue button down shirt and slacks, and his hair was perfect. He asked if I had an opinion on the project and I said I was just trying to collect information to transmit to the readers of the newspaper. He seemed pleased by this and began extolling the road's virtues, most of them economic. He also digressed a bit about the caribou herds near another mine that AIDEA funded, Red Dog, near Kotzebue, which, he claimed, had actually seen an increase in herd numbers during the life of the operation of that mine.
A woman working for BLM called the meeting to order and explained she would briefly summarize the project. As she did so I counted the room: ninety-one people sitting in chairs, thirty-three people standing on the periphery; nineteen of those in the room had gray hair, and two individuals wore camo ball caps. There were two very fancy cameras set up to record the process, which were both associated with the Defend the Brooks Range group that opposes the road. There was a woman chatting behind me that said, “I’m not sure BLM actually understands language.” As the BLM woman continued, she ventured into the salient topic of healthy caribou and other subsistence issues. When the BLM woman mispronounced the tribe name “Alatna,” the same woman that claimed the BLM didn’t understand language shouted the proper pronunciation at the lectern, then muttered, “If you’re gonna talk about resources, you could get our name right,” alongside a well-placed expletive. The BLM woman finished by stating the three simple rules for speaking that evening: be respectful, keep decorum, and one person at a time.
The most common refrains from the commenters were: the road will endanger hunting and fishing that are essential to the local tribe’s subsistence lifestyles. This includes diminished salmon spawning and habitat loss for sheefish, and the migration of the caribou. There was constant concern that the road, although touted as private, will invariably become open to or used by the public and this would further the destruction of the ecosystem and put more pressure on food sources. Many people voiced worries that the construction and operation of the mine would bring “man camps” that would bring with them pain and violence to Native women. Most people echoed that they wanted to be able to share the same ecosystem that they grew up with with their children. One of the more famous locals called the road a “corporate welfare pyramid scheme.” A college-aged student had clearly just read Marx as he shouted over and over about “bourgeois imperialists” and kept calling AIDEA a “terrorist organization.” Throughout the night, several tribal chiefs and presidents spoke, and each time you could hear a pin drop in the room, such care was given to their words by the audience.
By 10:22 PM, there were thirty-seven people left sitting, and thirteen standing on the periphery. The last speaker was from the Gwich'in Council International and he ended the night with a point that no one else had yet made: that all 574 tribal nations will be affected by the Ambler Road due to climate change reaching all parts of the globe. He was one of the better speakers of the night, although had the fewest audience members to hear him. But it was late, cold, and dark, and at least everyone got to say their bit.
And more will get to speak out yet. The statewide public comment tour is not over.
Remember: online public comments on the project end December 22. So please click the link and let your voice be heard.
Ambler Road Public Comment Link to BLM
Sources:
https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/57323/510
Alaska-ambler-road-critical-minerals-climate
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/02/22/ambler-road-alaska/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/climate/alaska-ambler-road-mine.html
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2023/02/18/2-tribal-councils-withdraw-ambler-road-lawsuit/