Groups sue Trump administration over permit for 200-mile industrial road through Northwest Alaska

Conservation groups joined forces Tuesday to challenge a right-of-way permit approved by the Trump administration for a roughly 200-mile industrial road through the Northwest Alaska wilderness to the Ambler mining district.

Trustees for Alaska and the Western Mining Action Project filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Alaska on behalf of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center and eight other groups, according to a statement from Trustees for Alaska.

The Bureau of Land Management issued record of decision in July that said the road will serve the public interest, boost revenues to the state and employ thousands of workers during construction of the road and mines.

[Trump administration approves 200-mile industrial road through Northwest Alaska wilderness]

The conservation groups assert that the federal agency and others failed to follow federal environmental laws and regulations. They say the gravel road will pollute the land and water and harm wildlife and people in the region.

The lawsuit names the Department of the Interior, the BLM, the National Park Service, the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S Coast Guard as defendants.

The Alaska Industrial and Development Export Authority, a state corporation, applied for the right-of-way permit.

The proposed gravel road would link Alaska’s skeletal road system north of Fairbanks to the mineral-rich Ambler Mining District, ending near Ambler and other villages. A portion of it would cross Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve.

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