For over 50 years, an area called the Dalton Corridor — which stretches from the Yukon River to the Brooks Range in Northern Alaska — has been subject to federal oversight.
But the Department of the Interior announced last month that it's reversing those protections to facilitate energy and mineral development, like the proposed Alaska LNG pipeline and the Ambler Road project. Gov. Mike Dunleavy hailed the announcement last month, saying it fulfills a promise made in the 1959 Alaska Statehood Act, which authorized the transfer of over 100 million acres of federal land to the state.
But a group of 10 environmental organizations say the transfer breaks a number of other land management laws — like the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
Rebecca Noblin is a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity — an organization dedicated to protecting endangered species and ecosystems across the United States, and one of the petitioners in the lawsuit. She said it's critical that those lands stay under the federal government's protection due to their importance to wildlife and nearby communities.
"Trump's reversal of these protections came without any sort of environmental review or public process or explanation for the reversal," Noblin said. "So we'll see them in court."
The complaint, filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Anchorage, alleges that the transfer will cause widespread harm to vulnerable ecosystems and species, like caribou.
But many petitioners are also concerned about the human cost — like Pam Miller, who directs the Alaska Community Action on Toxics.
"It threatens communities with contamination from heavy metals and other other harmful chemicals," she said. "This would certainly pave the way for the Ambler Road and other extractive industries to move in and damage the lands and waters and the communities that depend on them for cultural and subsistence reasons."
Bureau of Land Management Alaska State Director Kevin Pendergast previously acknowledged that subsistence users in the area could experience new restrictions on lands that are transferred to the state. And in the lawsuit, the petitioners highlighted the BLM's admission that local communities could lose access to entire areas that were previously open for subsistence use.
Tanana Chiefs Conference, a Fairbanks-based Alaska Native tribal consortium, isn't involved in the lawsuit. But it did release a statement condemning the transfer, saying the decision was made without necessary tribal consultation and that it could strip protections from important harvesting grounds and cultural sites.
The Department of the Interior declined to comment on the lawsuit.
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