Public comments due July 6, 2026
All photos are credited to David Pisaneschi
Teshekpuk Lake is one of the most ecologically important places in Alaska’s Arctic. Located within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, or NPR-A, Teshekpuk Lake and the surrounding tundra and wetlands provide critical habitat for migratory birds, caribou, and countless other species that depend on the Arctic’s brief but abundant summer season.
Now, this region is facing renewed threats from expanded oil and gas development. 
On May 19, 2026, the Bureau of Land Management published a Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for a proposed rulemaking that would create a streamlined permitting process for qualifying oil and gas production sites and associated infrastructure in the NPR-A. This could include gravel pads, gravel access roads, pipelines, supporting facilities, and other infrastructure. Public comments on the scope of the analysis, potential alternatives, and relevant studies are due by July 6, 2026.
At Northern Alaska Environmental Center, we know that public comments matter. They help show decision-makers what is at stake and why places like Teshekpuk Lake deserve lasting protection.
One of our members, David Pisaneschi, recently submitted a powerful comment about his experience traveling through the Teshekpuk Lake region and why he believes the Arctic deserves protection. We wanted to share his words because they capture something that technical documents often miss: the feeling of encountering a place that is still truly wild.
“The Arctic Deserves Our Protection”
David writes:
I’m an Adirondack Winter 46er. I completed Northeast 115 and climbed the Catskill High Peaks. I’ve extensively explored most of the backcountry within the Adirondacks and Catskills. I’ve peered into the deepest reaches of the Grand Canyon, visited most of our national parks, stood on the summit of Mount Whitney, and kayaked the Everglades Coast from Flamingo to Everglades City.
But these are parks, surrounded by roads and encroaching civilization. Last year during June and July, I visited an area so remote, wild, and untouched that it’s literally a blank spot on the map. No guidebook describes it.
David describes packrafting a little-known river draining into Teshekpuk Lake in the NPR-A, a place so remote that even seasoned Alaska wildland travelers may never have heard of it.
What’s at stake: wilderness on a scale no other American place can provide, a marvel as amazing now as the Grand Canyon was to Major Powell, as Yosemite was to John Muir, as Yellowstone was to Jim Bridger. Raw, untouched wildland is so rare in the modern world.
His comment reminds us that some places cannot be understood only through maps, lease boundaries, or development scenarios. Some places must be understood through the life they hold, the people who know them, and the responsibility we have not to destroy what remains intact.
Teshekpuk Lake is one of the NPR-A’s Special Areas. These lands were recognized because of their extraordinary wildlife, subsistence, cultural, and ecological values.
David describes the landscape south of Teshekpuk Lake as “an area of sandy ridges, long river bluffs, and flowered tundra benches winding between and through a maze of ponds and lakes.” During the brief Arctic summer, this mosaic of land and water becomes dense with life.
Birds from around the world migrate to Teshekpuk’s wetlands to breed and molt. David notes that all four species of eider ducks, an estimated 600,000 shorebirds, hundreds of thousands of geese, including a significant portion of the world’s brant, yellow-billed loons, jaegers, snowy owls, and many passerines rely on the area.
This abundance of bird life also supports foxes, weasels, wolverines, and avian predators.
The area is also home to the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd, the only non-migratory caribou herd in Arctic Alaska. These caribou spend the entire year on the Arctic Slope. David describes seeing caribou several times during his trip, including a large herd that came close while he waited for a float plane at Teshekpuk Lake.
What the BLM Proposal Means
The BLM’s proposed rulemaking would establish pre-defined criteria that, if met by an applicant, would result in streamlined permitting for qualifying production sites in the NPR-A. The agency says the Environmental Impact Statement will evaluate impacts to subsistence resources and uses; wildlife and habitat, including caribou, polar bears, migratory birds, and fish; wetlands; permafrost; air quality; noise; cultural and historic resources; and other values.
Those impacts must be taken seriously.
Streamlining oil and gas permitting in the NPR-A risks reducing the careful, site-specific review that places like Teshekpuk Lake require. Roads, pipelines, gravel pads, and other infrastructure do not just occupy isolated footprints. They fragment habitat, alter wildlife movement, disturb wetlands and tundra, increase noise and traffic, and create lasting industrial corridors across fragile Arctic lands.
For communities that depend on the Arctic for food, culture, and continuity, these decisions carry consequences far beyond any single project approval.
“It Cannot Be Both”
David closes his comment with a clear warning:
This area can either be a sprawling industrial complex or a wild, remote, and untouched wilderness. It cannot be both. It needs to be left alone. There are so few of these places remaining.
We agree.
The Arctic is warming rapidly. Alaska communities are already facing thawing permafrost, erosion, changing wildlife patterns, and growing threats to food security. At this moment, federal agencies should be strengthening protections for intact Arctic ecosystems, not making it easier to industrialize them.
Teshekpuk Lake and the surrounding wetlands are too important to sacrifice for oil and gas development. Once roads, pads, pipelines, and industrial facilities are built across this landscape, the wildness David experienced cannot simply be put back.
Take Action by July 6
The BLM is accepting public comments on the scope of the Environmental Impact Statement until July 6, 2026.
You can submit comments urging the BLM to fully evaluate the impacts of streamlined oil and gas permitting on:
- Teshekpuk Lake and other Special Areas;
- migratory birds and Arctic wetlands;
- the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd;
- subsistence resources and uses;
- Alaska Native communities and Tribal consultation;
- cumulative impacts from existing and future oil and gas development;
- climate impacts and greenhouse gas emissions;
- the long-term consequences of fragmenting intact Arctic lands.
The BLM should not shortcut public review, Tribal consultation, environmental analysis, or site-specific scrutiny for oil and gas development in the NPR-A.
How to comment:
Submit comments through BLM’s ePlanning website using NEPA number DOI-BLM-AK-0000-2026-0012-EIS, by email at NPR-A_ProductionSite_EIS@blm.gov, or by mail to:
BLM, Alaska State Office
Attention: NPR-A Production Site EIS
222 West 7th Avenue, #13
Anchorage, AK 99513-7599
Teshekpuk Lake is still intact. Let’s keep it that way.