Alaska News

Study says Ambler road would have negligible impact on caribou habitat

A new road running about 200 miles to northwestern Alaska's Ambler Mining District will displace only a small amount of high-quality winter habitat used by the region's huge caribou herd, a study by biologists from the Wilderness Society, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Park Service has found.

Projected habitat loss from three road scenarios ranges from 1.5 percent to 8.5 percent, according to the study, published in the December issue of the journal Arctic.

Only about a tenth of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, Alaska's largest, uses the study area as its winter range, said study co-author Kyle Joly of the National Park Service. "That's why we're thinking it's not going to be a very large impact to caribou winter terrain," Joly said.

The impacts studied are limited to direct loss of winter habitat expected from construction of the road, Joly said. "This is just a piece of the puzzle," he said. "There's all sorts of other impacts."

Those include impacts to caribou migration patterns and cumulative road impacts like increased access for hunters, possible road collisions and dust from traffic smothering vegetation, he said. Such impacts are likely to be considered in future studies, he said.

High-quality winter habitat for the Western Arctic caribou has specific characteristics, Joly said: varied, rugged topography rather than flat terrain; high abundance of lichen, which makes up most of the caribou diet; absence of bigger vegetation like alders, which can trap snow and impede travel or hide predators; and relatively low snow cover, as indicated by earlier spring snowmelt. Generally, areas that had not been recently burned by wildfire are those with higher quantities of lichen, he said.

Road controversy

The proposed Ambler road has been the subject of fierce debate.

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The road would run from the Dalton Highway west to the Ambler Mining District, site of rich copper deposits and exploration activities by Vancouver-based NovaCopper, Vancouver-based Andover Mining and, in past years, other companies.

It was part of former Gov. Sean Parnell's "Roads to Resources" initiative, which is promoting several transportation projects to remote sites rich in resources that could be extracted by private industry. The Legislature has appropriated $26.25 million over the past five years to the project, including $8.5 million in the 2015 budget approved earlier this year.

The road is envisioned as a public-private venture, with the state fronting the money to build it and the mining companies paying tolls to use the road, reimbursing the construction cost over time. The project is being managed by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority and is proposed as an industrial-only road, with no public use.

Supporters say the road project would make commercial mining feasible in the Ambler district and would bring several associated economic benefits. NANA Regional Corp., a Native corporation that in 2011 signed a? cooperative agreement with NovaCopper to develop the mining district, maintains an official position in support of the environmental study process to evaluate the road.

Opponents say the road and possibly the associated mine development would damage the environment and the resources used by subsistence food-gatherers. Some tribal governments along the proposed route have passed resolutions in opposition, and the Northern Alaska Environmental Center in Fairbanks has been an active opponent. The project is particularly unpopular in Bettles, at the eastern end of the proposed route, where an organization called the Brooks Range Council was formed in 2012 specifically to oppose it.

With low oil prices causing budget problems for the state, the Ambler road is among several proposed projects that might be re-evaluated, new Gov. Bill Walker has said.

Correction: This story originally described NANA as a "backer" of the road project. NANA supports the environmental study process evaluating the road.

Yereth Rosen

Yereth Rosen was a reporter for Alaska Dispatch News.

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