Recently the Secretary of The Interior Doug Burgum, along with Governor of Alaska Mike Dunleavy, celebrated through the signing of multiple pieces of legislation on what they boasted as a celebratory “Alaska Day”. The two most important, and controversial, pieces of legislation are what I am going to summarize in this short blog.
A Mining Road Through a National Park
That's not remotely an exaggeration, sadly. The Ambler Mining Road is a 211 mile industrial mining road that is set to be built in north-central Alaska to connect Dalton Highway to the Ambler Mining District. The road will cross through Gates of The Arctic National Park for 26 miles, and nearly 50 bridges and thousands of culverts will need to be built in order for the road to access the Southern Brook’s Range region of Alaska. It is worth noting that National Parks were kind of (absolutely) created to prevent something like this from happening, and a middle ground that does not so blatantly violate this founding principle, and the wilderness it protects, needs to be met.
If you wish to read more about this I have linked some articles from many different sources, with different biases and interests.
Additional Sources to Learn About the Ambler Mining Road
Over 1 Million Acres of Resource Extraction In the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Department of The Interior recently announced it was opening 1.56 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration. Opening 1.56 million acres of a National Wildlife Refuge is already suspicious to begin with considering these are supposed to be protected spaces, but some background reveals this is about 8% of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s total size, which honestly is a pretty good balance between wildlife and development. Further research reveals however, this 1.56 million acres is the totality of the Arctic Coastal Plain portion of the refuge Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. So, instead of spreading the damage caused by drilling out over the 19 million acres, the Department of The Interior just decided to concentrate it all in one area. While it is also worth noting that the Arctic Coastal Plain covers a whole lot more than 1.56 million acres, I cannot find an exact figure for that (but a look on Google Earth verifies it), another humongous portion of this is under federal control. The National Petroleum Reserve is a 23 million acre Bureau of Land Management plot of land set aside in Alaska’s North Slope. It was set aside by President Warren Harding as an emergency fuel source for the Navy, and recently the Department of The Interior announced it would open 83% of it up to resource extraction. That is over 21 million acres; five times the size of New Jersey. So do we need another 1.56 million acres, or 7% of the leasing available in the National Petroleum Reserve alone, for resource extraction? Especially considering this is an area specifically set aside for wildlife, not resource extraction. Could we find a better middle ground?
Now it is worth noting that this does not mean 1.56 million acres are going to be developed. Not only are there the environmental laws associated with mining, but this is the amount of land opened for leasing. If companies do not buy a lease, as the final resource I provided shows has happened here before, then nothing happens.
Additional Resources About Resource Extraction in The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
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