Alex DeMarban is a longtime Alaska journalist who covers business, the oil and gas industries and general assignments. Reach him at 907-257-4317 or alex@adn.com.
The Interior Department had said earlier this week that aerial surveys of polar bear dens were not conducted on time. Kaktovik Inupiat Corp. shot back in a statement, saying that’s the federal government’s fault.
Some Alaskans fear she’ll halt important projects. Others see new possibilities for improving lives across the state.
“If we have people in the Department of Interior such as Deb (Haaland), maybe there will be a balance,” Young said. “And anybody who thinks they’ll cut off fossil fuels immediately, you’re smoking pot.”
Kaktovik Inupiat Corp., the Alaska Native corporation for the only village in the refuge, had applied to conduct seismic exploration in the refuge’s coastal plain.
An Alaska-based company also has plans to deliver affordable, satellite broadband internet to rural communities.
A company spokeswoman said the workforce reduction is unrelated to recent court decisions affecting its project on Alaska’s North Slope.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with conservation and Indigenous groups and halted winter work at a major ConocoPhillips oil project on Alaska’s North Slope.
Battered and left vacant by the 2018 Anchorage earthquake, the building’s new look is meant to “create an Arctic phenomenon,” the developer said.
The lodge owner said a resident in the area had snowmachined over and found the cabin “had been burned to the ground with no signs of recent activity or the caretaker,” according to troopers.
The rise in online shopping and the shipment of pandemic-related medical supplies helped boost demand for air cargo. Passenger numbers, however, were down 62% from 2019.
The large market is looking for a new home in Anchorage, Eagle River or the Valley.
Environmental groups appealed a decision last week allowing ConocoPhillips to open a gravel mine or build a gravel road at the Willow oil discovery in the NPR-A.
