The Ambler Road Project Creates Immense Challenges for Wild Fish [1] Part 5: The High Cost of Culvert Maintenance – June 2026
Gale K. Vick [2]
Map courtesy of Dr. Kevin Fraley, Wildlife Conservation Society
Alaska has an essential culvert problem. We have thousands of documented and undocumented culverts that are already smack in the path of migrating salmon with very limited manpower or budgets or clear jurisdictional responsibility among numerous agencies, to identify or adequately maintain them. Even in urban areas.
Culverts are only one of the threats to fish but they are a critical one. Often forgotten or neglected, poorly functioning culverts are quickly becoming one of the major decline factors for salmon.
“With tens of thousands of streams across Alaska, the fact that poor fish passage where roads cross streams could be a significant threat to Alaska’s fisheries may come as a surprise. Recent surveys have, however, found that the thousands of culverts underlying Alaska’s resource access roads, major state highways, and neighborhood streets block movement of juveniles and adults during all or certain times of year. They also alter natural stream processes that help create/maintain habitat.” [3]
The proposed Ambler Road has a culvert problem exponentially magnified by the remoteness of the project over thousands of fish streams, rearing and spawning habitat and wetlands.
Anadromous fish transit from early Spring when ocean or down-river bound smolt are out-going from their rearing habitat to late fall, even under the ice, when they are returning to their home streams or lakes to spawn. Fish may have to navigate many culverts when ice is going out, during the entire summer, and beyond freeze-up. Which means culverts must be monitored for at least six months out of the year, several times in a season and certainly after a major event like flooding. Given Alaska’s extreme climate, culverts are more like to be damaged every single season than not. Especially when the culverts are built too small to begin with.
“The problem with the majority of culverts underneath our residential streets, highways, and railways is that they’re not typically mindful of fish, floods, or the dynamism of rivers. They’re almost always too small. Each time a stream encounters a road there’s a good chance it’ll be pinched like an hourglass by a too-small culvert. It’s not uncommon for a 10 foot wide stream to be forced into a two foot diameter culvert. These choke points concentrate flows and make passage difficult or impossible for fish. … ‘We shouldn’t put a road across a river until we know it. Really well.” [4]
Culverts are an integral part of basic road infrastructure. When a blocked or damaged culvert is identified, it needs immediate mitigation, whether is it a fish culvert or not. Culvert maintenance means routinely assessing for damage or blockage. This requires human on-site inspection, sometimes underwater.
Aside from seasonal impacts, culverts don’t have an indefinite shelf life and culverts built to old specifications are not likely to be “fish friendly.” This means that the “green pipe” we build in one year may over time become a “red pipe.” Culvert design depends on the project design specifications and estimated use. Culvert maintenance depends on the jurisdiction and the legal requirements of the project as well as sufficient budgets. Culvert replacement depends on a complicated scenario of discovery and compliance. And lots and lots of money.
This inevitably raises the question – who will require, monitor and pay for culvert maintenance, repair and or replacement for the proposed Ambler Road Project? And what are the projected costs?
The Hunters and Anglers of the Brooks Range recently wrote: “ A bill was introduced in the 2025-2026 Alaska State Legislature, commonly known as the AIDEA [5] Accountability Act, to increase oversight, transparency, and accountability of the entity, although it failed to pass this session. Now, a new report shows that the proposed Ambler Road could be another gamble made by AIDEA that could leave the bill with Alaskans.” [6] Further, the article notes, the to-date estimates for the Ambler Road project, without maintenance or financing, is over $2billion which would translate to over $3.5bilion [7] over the life of the project, well under the estimated revenue stream to the State.
What will the actual culvert maintenance, repair and replacement costs be? No one knows. Agency budgets are very generalized when it comes to culverts in their jurisdiction. But we know that Alaska does not have the resources to cover the need. “Alaska’s deferred-maintenance backlog was reported at over $2 billion for its fiscal year 2025. Alaska Beacon’s earlier reporting showed lawmakers focusing limited capital dollars on deferred maintenance and projects needed to unlock larger pools of federal money, and that pattern still shapes this year’s budget.” [8]
In the FY2026 Alaska capital budget, only $910 thousand was requested for fish friendly culvert assessment and repair statewide. [9] In 2023 alone, federal grants for $44million were awarded for specific Alaska culvert repair and replacement. [10] It barely scratched the surface for the currently identified stream culverts. Multiply that many times when trying to assess the maintenance needs of over 3,000 remote site crossings for the Ambler Road. Then think of the reality of replacing inevitably damaged culverts.
The proposed Ambler Road crosses State and federal as well as private Native-owned lands. That means a lot of agencies have some responsibility, aside from the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT/PF) for general road maintenance and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), which has the primary responsibility for the project. AIDEA plans on paying for road maintenance through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) exacting tolls with anticipated users. [11] (Such partnerships have not been signed and revenues would be after-the-fact for much of the needed culvert monitoring and maintenance at the beginning and during project construction.)
When many agencies have responsibilities and authorities it complicates the reality of how things get done. There are so many contradictions in all the Ambler Road Project documents regarding culvert design, placement and maintenance that it is almost impossible to construct a direct pathway to know how, where and why a particular culvert size will be built in a particular fish stream or wetland and who will adequately monitor and pay for maintenance costs for the life of the road.
None of which is comforting for fish. The Ambler Road Project will have thousands of culverts that will likely not be monitored in a way that protects the fish of the project region. Who then will bear the ultimate cost of loss or extirpation of wild anadromous fish when culverts inevitably prevent fish passage?
The ultimate conclusion: Alaskans will.
Part #6 of this series will discuss laws, regulations and jurisdictions for culvert management in Alaska.
[1] This is a revision of the original title of “wild salmon” to acknowledge all the other fish species in the Ambler Road Project area
[2] Gale K. Vick is a 57 year resident of Alaska with a long history of research and commentary on fisheries policy for various organizations. This is researched opinion and should not be considered definitive. Original sources should always be consulted and verified.
[3] “Alaska Fish Passage Program Partnerships helping fish move freely between habitats” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service https://catalog.epscor.alaska.edu/dataset/7058fbaa-fe5b-4fbf-8fe4-d55482b386d5/resource/f2e32274-a076-454e-9923-9ffe238c5e68/download/usfws-_fish_passage_program.pdf
[4] “Fish-friendly roads? Yes, that’s a thing.” U.S. Fish & Wildlife, Alaska June 13, 2017 https://medium.com/usfws/fish-friendly-roads-yes-thats-a-thing-d3da81e179f8
[5] Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority
[6] “The Ambler Industrial Road Is A Multi-Billion-Dollar Question For Alaska,” Bjorn Dihle, Hunters and Anglers for the Brooks Range, April 17, 2026 https://huntfishbrooksrange.com/the-ambler-industrial-road-is-a-multi-billion-dollar-question-for-alaska/
[7] Estimating Ambler Road Construction, Maintenance, and Financing Costs Prepared by Lois Epstein,1 P.E. of LNE Engineering and Policy (Anchorage, Alaska) January 2026 https://alaskawild.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/roadcostrptfinal26.pdf
[8] “Alaska House Advances $2.5B Capital Budget for Repairs, Schools, and Infrastructure.” Construct Connect News By Marshall Benveniste May 18, 2026 https://news.constructconnect.com/alaska-house-advances-2.5b-capital-budget-for-repairs-schools-and-infrastructure
[9] https://omb.alaska.gov/ombfiles/26_budget/Trans/Enacted/2026proj66969.pdf
[10] Millions in Federal Money for Culvert Fixes in Alaska, Public News Service, by Mark Moran, August 23, 2023 https://app.publicnewsservice.org/story/millions-in-federal-money-for-culvert-fixes-in-alaska-85953/c0a3a75a-b9a6-46ab-be7f-38f4dbfec008?
[11] Ambler Road Environmental Impact Statement Fact Sheet, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/uploads/Planning_Alaska_AmblerRoadEIS_Fact_Sheet.pdf