The Biden administration is expected to deny a mining company a permit to build 211 miles of industrial roads through Alaska's fragile wilderness, an election in which the president wants to highlight his credentials as a climate leader and conservationist. will hand victory to environmentalists.
The Interior Department will rule as soon as this week that “no action should be taken” on the federal land where the road, known as the Ambler Access Project, will be built, two people familiar with the decision said on condition of anonymity. They are planning to make an announcement. Because they had no authority to discuss the decision. A formal denial of the project will be made later this year, they said.
The road was essential to reach copper deposits worth an estimated $7.5 billion buried in ecologically sensitive land. There are currently no mines in the area and no permit applications have been submitted to the government. That was the first step.
It would be a major victory for opponents who have long argued that closing industrial roads threatens wildlife as well as Alaska Native tribes who rely on hunting and fishing.
Environmentalists, including many young climate change activists, were outraged last year by President Biden's decision to approve Willow, an $8 billion oil drilling project on pristine federal land in Alaska. The proposed road is several hundred miles south of the Willow project.
The move comes as the Biden administration attempts to find a balance between two different and sometimes conflicting goals.
Biden is keen to strengthen America's clean energy footprint to fight climate change. Ambler Metals, the mining venture behind the proposed road, says the copper it seeks is essential for manufacturing wind turbines, solar cells and power lines needed for wind, solar and other renewable energy. He said that. But the president is also determined to protect environmentally sensitive lands, cutting off some public lands from oil and gas drilling while expanding the footprint of monuments across the country.
David Kraus, interim executive director of the National Audubon Society's Alaska office, said conservation around the Ambler region is a “big deal.”
“This is one of the most ecologically intact and functional landscapes on Earth,” Kraus said.
As proposed, the Ambler project would pass through the base of the Brooks Range and the gates of Arctic National Park and Preserve, crossing 11 rivers and thousands of streams to reach the $350 million 2 It consists of an all-season gravel road with lanes. Site of a future mine.
The Department of the Interior found the road could disturb wildlife habitat, contaminate salmon spawning grounds and threaten the hunting and fishing traditions of more than 30 Alaska Native communities. In its final analysis, authorities expect any version of the industrial road would cause “significant and irreversible” damage to the environment and tribal communities, two officials said.
“Both the caribou and the fish are struggling,” Julie Roberts Hislop, the Tanana's first chief, said in an interview last year. A road would make those problems worse, she says.
A Home Office spokesperson declined to comment.
Caleb Fröhlich, managing director of Ambler Metals, said the company was “stunned” by the Interior Department's rejection of the project.
“If true, this decision ignores local community support for this project, while also denying jobs to Alaskans and displacing young people due to lack of opportunity,” Froehlich said in a statement. “This would deny vital income to the communities where they live.” He called it an “illegal and politically motivated decision” and called on the government to reconsider.
Because Ambler Road passes through federal land, it required a right-of-way permit from the Department of the Interior. The Trump administration approved the permit in 2020, saying the road could provide access to large copper and cobalt deposits.
After Biden was elected, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland ordered a new analysis, saying the roads' environmental impacts had not been adequately studied. In October, her agency released a draft investigation that found “serious flaws” in the Trump administration-era study.
For example, the new study identified 66 communities that could be affected by the road, compared to the Trump administration's 27. The study found that many of these communities depend on local caribou and fish, and industrial roads could negatively impact the movement and survival of caribou, which are already threatened by climate change. .
They also found that building roads could hasten the thawing of permafrost, ground that has been frozen for hundreds or thousands of years. Thawing permafrost can make the ground unstable, leading to rockfalls, flooding, and damage to indigenous communities. Thawing permafrost releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which can also contribute to global warming.
“Ice-rich soils in the proposed corridor are likely to warm and thaw with or without construction,” the study said. “However, construction is expected to amplify or accelerate soil thawing in certain locations,” the agency wrote.
Without roads, copper deposits would likely remain untouched. The decision is expected to draw an angry backlash from Alaska's two U.S. senators, both Republicans and the lone Democrat, all of whom support the road.
Alaska state leaders argue that the Alaska Land Conservation Act of 1980 guarantees the proposed Ambler Road right-of-way over federal land.
Alaska's development bank, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, applied for a federal permit to build the road in 2015 and approved approximately $44.8 million in funding for the project. Ambler Metals said the road was “urgently” needed to provide domestic minerals for national security and clean energy to combat climate change.
It is estimated that the road and associated mine will create more than 3,900 jobs in an area with high unemployment rates while generating more than $300 million in annual wages and additional revenue for state and local coffers.
Tribes and environmental groups have questioned these assumptions as too optimistic, saying there are larger reserves in less ecologically sensitive areas of the country.
