BY TIM BRADNER THERE ARE VOICES UNHEARD IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA REPORTS ON THE AMBLER ROAD. THOSE ARE THE RURAL ALASKANS IN NORTHWEST ALASKA WHO SUPPORT THE ROAD. Here is Second Chief Gordon Bergman of Allakaket, a community near the planned route of the road: “In Allakaket we have 67 adults without jobs; 17 households lack snow machines, and 14 householders don’t have four-wheelers, which are essential in fetching water, wood, and groceries. These households rely on others for their needs, especially when obtaining subsistence resources, sometimes requiring long journeys. The cost of gas is $11,” per gallon, Bergman said at the Nov. 14 Ambler Road public hearing in Allakaket. “It takes cash. It takes jobs. Our community need these jobs,” he said. Opponents to the road, mostly from Fairbanks, were also at the meeting. To them, Bergman said: “You don’t live here. For Allakaket to prosper, we need jobs. That is the path to wellness. Allakaket is near the eastern end of the planned 211-mile industrial access road. Residents of Ambler and Shungnak, at the western end, said the road would bring good jobs and lower living costs. “It is critical to move this project forward. Slowing it down would be a mistake,” said Fred Sun, Tribal Council president in Shungnak. Although opponents to the road showed up at the Anchorage hearing so did a group of Alaska Native elders. All of the elders spoke in support of the project, saying the jobs it would lead to would help them support their families. Opponents, however, said the road will destroy one of North America’s last great wilderness areas and threaten caribou and other subsistence resources. The response: A mine and access road hasn’t harmed wildlife at the Red Dog lead-zinc mine further west or other places served by controlled-access industrial roads, like at the Pogo gold mine east of Fairbanks. The occasions for this debate were public hearings by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management on a revised Environmental Impact Statement for the road, which is planned to be built to the Ambler Mining District where companies are exploring major copper discoveries. The road would extend west across federal and state lands from the Dalton Highway, the all-year road that links North Slope oil fields with Interior Alaska. A state agency, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, would finance and build the road with its construction cost repaid by tolls on shipping ore from mines built to the west. AIDEA undertook a similar initiative with Red Dog Mine in the 1980s. Red Dog is now the world’s largest lead-zinc mine. Its road and shipping port, still owned by AIDEA, has been a major money-maker for the state. Hearings and public comments on the revised environmental impact statement for the Ambler Road are closed and BLM says it will issue a final document and a Record of Decision in the first part of 2024. BLM could select the no action alternative in the EIS or to choose “alternative C,” an option for a longer road introduced for the first time in the new environmental study. “Alternative A” is the option preferred by AIDEA and is the shortest route, at 211 miles, with the least environmental impacts. Alternative B, at 228 miles, follows a somewhat different route. Alternative C would involve 332 miles of road. If BLM selects Alternative C, it would make the project uneconomic. VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 1 | WINTER 2024 AMBLER ROAD DISCUSSION BRINGS VARYING OPINIONS www.AKRDC.org 13
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTcxMjMwNg==