A road labeled as a boost to both subsistence and salaries has passed a key milestone on the North Slope, with federal officials approving a wetlands permit for the 6-mile gravel ribbon that will connect the village of Nuiqsut with ConocoPhillips' Alpine oil field near the eastern edge of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, officials said.
"There will be excitement in the air" as the news spreads through the village of 400, said Isaac Nukapigak, president of the Kuukpik Corp.
The Alaska Native village corporation for the Inupiaq village will build the gravel road -- at a cost of $10 million to $13 million -- to improve hunting for caribou and reaching fishing sites in the summer, and to access jobs in the oil patch, said Nukapigak.
About two dozen residents work in the nearby oil fields, he said. Kuukpik is involved in the industry, with companies providing oil field services that include building ice roads, catering at work camps, drilling and security.
The villagers who work at Alpine and related efforts, such as the CD-5 development, will be able to drive home at night to be with family, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a press release noting that she'd worked with the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to finalize permitting.
The permit, under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, allows gravel fill to be placed on the tundra, officials said.
Sen. Mark Begich also issued a press release that noted that he'd pushed for the road, including meeting with EPA administrator Gina McCarthy and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.
Nukapigak said work to extract gravel from a site owned by Arctic Slope Regional Corp. has already begun. The road will travel across land owned by Kuukpik and ASRC, which owns the subsurface estate. The road likely won't be ready for use until at least a year and a half, he said.
The road will also allow improved access to emergency services available at Alpine that aren't available in the village, proponents have said. In order to balance conservation goals with development, the corporation is setting aside a 127-acre chunk of land as a conservation easement.
This isn't the first time the village corporation has taken advantage of its location near some of the world's richest oil fields.
When Alpine was first being developed in the mid-1990s, Kuukpik worked out an agreement with the oil industry that allows its royalty gas to be used to the benefit of the North Slope Borough and the village.
As a result, households in the village get energy at cheaper rates than those paid in Anchorage: $25 a month for unlimited use of natural gas and 8 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity.
The permitting approval comes as the Bureau of Land Management holds a series of meetings in the region and in Anchorage and Fairbanks to discuss another proposed oilfield development near Alpine: ConocoPhillips' Greater Mooses Tooth Unit 1.