News on Arctic lawsuits and lease sales
By Dawnell Smith
The Trump administration continues using whatever means it chooses, even when unlawful and without consideration of impacts, to wrench public lands away from all of us and into the hands of private industry.
Mountains of the Dalton Highway Corridor near Atigun Pass. BLM photo by Tyra Olstad.
Despite agencies making it nearly impossible for people to speak up for public lands in agency processes, some of our partners have organized public hearings where you can learn more about the threats to the Arctic and Alaska while standing up for public lands. Plus, there will be food!
Meanwhile, we continue going to court to protect the Arctic.
The latest land grab
We sued the Interior Department last week for breaking multiple laws when revoking public land orders that had protected areas along the Dalton Highway corridor that have been vital to wildlife, communities, and the stability of the Alaska pipeline corridor for over 50 years. The administration lifted those protections to pave the way for transfer of those lands to the State of Alaska.
The Dalton corridor and Koyukuk river winding through the Brooks Range near Coldfoot and near the start of the proposed Ambler road. Photo by Bob Wick.
The administration’s move to give away over 2 million acres of public lands fits within a larger broad effort to move public lands out of federal oversight and into state ownership to let projects like the proposed Ambler road move forward more easily. The State of Alaska simply does not provide much protection for subsistence users or require meaningful mitigation measures when permitting projects.
As Krystal Lapp, president of the board for Northern Alaska Environmental Center said, “These two million acres form an essential ecological connection between Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and support world-renowned wildlife migrations, subsistence hunting and fishing, and intact Arctic ecosystems. Eliminating these protections opens the door to state land selections, mining claims, and industrial development in one of the most ecologically significant landscapes in North America.”
The latest mismanagement plan for the western Arctic
Last month, we went to court challenging the Trump administration with breaking multiple laws when adopting a management plan for the western Arctic that ignores obligations to protect communities, wildlife, land, and water.
A spectacled eider pair in the Colville River Delta. Photo by Ryan Askren.
The plan opens over 80 percent of the Reserve to oil and gas leasing, alters the boundaries of the decades-long protected Teshekpuk Lake Special Area, and eliminates the Colville River Special Area entirely. It guts protections put in place in the 1970s to safeguard birds, marine life, local communities, and an array of wildlife. (Read more about Colville River raptors in this month’s newsletter.)
Interior’s plan even claims it can hold oil and gas lease sales until 2045 or beyond without looking at impacts. The plan fundamentally takes the public out of public land decision-making.
A public land selloff
The Trump administration has an oil and gas lease sale scheduled for the western Arctic on March 18 and has just closed a short comment period during its “call for nominations” for an as yet unscheduled lease sale for the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
A “call for nominations” is when the government seeks recommendations from oil and gas corporations and other entities about what parcels should be included in the lease sale. We submitted comments on the proposed Arctic Refuge lease sale that can be summed up as: “No parcels. None. Never.”
Braided channels of a river flow north from the Brooks Range across the Arctic coastal plain. Photo by Lisa Hupp, USFWS.
Lands sacred to the Gwich’in of Alaska and Canada should never be divided up and leased for oil and gas exploitation. We are already in court challenging that leasing program for breaking multiple laws that protect people, wildlife, and water, and for threatening the health of the coastal plain — public lands vital to local people and cherished by Americans.
This month you can join the effort to protect the Arctic Refuge by joining one of these community events in Seattle and Portland. Find out more about both events here.
The Seattle event on March 24 starts with food at 6 pm and the program is from 6:30 to 8 pm at the Rainier Tower. RSVP or go to the FB event for more details.
The Portland event on March 26 starts with food at 6 pm and includes hearings from 6:30 to 8 pm at the Love is King Office. RSVP or go to the FB event for more details.