Part 1 — April 3, 2026
Gale K. Vick (1) is a 57 year resident of Alaska with a long history of research and commentary on fisheries policy for various organizations.
Living in Alaska for over five decades has taught me one true thing – we are at the same time a very resilient and fragile state. At any given time, we can easily tip that balance.
I’ve fished in Alaska since 1968. That was pre-pipeline and gave me a brief window into an Alaska that no longer exists. While the 1974-1977 Trans-Alaska Pipeline (TAPS) construction was a monumental cost-plus project with a lot of agreements and guarantees in mitigating wildlife and stream crossings and a corridor that did not allow spurs, the subsequent development it inspired changed Alaska forever.
The Ambler Road project is a different creature. Like the Pipeline, it is a corridor into pristine wilderness, but differing in fundamental ways. It is not a project of national security, it will have a fixed budget, it will be a heavily trafficked road, and it will be a conduit to an unknown number of branches for an unknown number of mining exploration and development. In short, the Ambler Road is much more than just a road and will not have the same long-term funding and environmental guarantees that TAPS and the Dalton Highway Haul Road have.
In brief, this commentary focuses on the critical issues salmon and other in-river fish species will face in the light of road construction, maintenance and eventual mining activity. It comes down to a single realization: the challenges will be immense and the mitigation cost will be formidable. A January estimation of Ambler Road construction – to date- by LNE Engineering and Policy, is currently over $2bllion. The report noted, however, that costs could increase considerably.
“Fisheries data not yet collected for the proposed Ambler road may show the need for additional, costly, bridges and/or culverts. The fisheries data needed to design the road’s culverts and bridges have not yet been fully collected. The SEIS states that “Additional field study would be necessary to identify all streams and other aquatic habitats in the study area and to determine potential fish use.” (2)
Fish species within the Road project area include Chinook, summer chum, and coho salmon, sheefish (inconnu), Arctic grayling, Dolly Varden char, broad whitefish, humpback whitefish, northern pike, Arctic lamprey, burbot, lake trout. The road will cross over 2900 streams, 11 major rivers, and 1700 wetlands.(3) The Alaska Anadromous Waters Catalog (AWC) (4) which has cataloged these crossings is estimated to only enumerate about 50% of the actual anadromous species spawning areas.(5)
Alaska is already having extreme problems in protecting anadromous fish passage and habitat.
All salmon stocks in the project drainage are in severe decline because of a multitude of factors, including the lack of bandwidth to monitor and assess remote stream escapement and the health of salmon habitat. The Project will not only amplify that challenge but will create many new barriers, new problems for weakened stocks to overcome.
Wild salmon are a keystone species for entire ecosystems so their decline goes far beyond commodity use or food security. Wild salmon are so important to Alaska they played a major role in Statehood. Protection of wild salmon is included in Alaska’s Constitution. We have a Sustainable Salmon Policy embedded in statute (5 AAC 39.222.) But our commitment to salmon only goes as far as we are willing and able to protect them.
Our collision of need for mined minerals vs protection of wild species, whether riverine or land, is always the central problem in consideration of large scale mining operations. Elsewhere in the United States, roads, dams, water diversions and mining projects have proven to be salmon’s Achilles heel. The billions of dollars spent on salmon have not resulted in any significant gain for wild salmon recovery…“Also, farming, logging, mining and irrigation caused landscape changes and habitat degradation, which compounded the problems for the fish,” said Jaeger, who collaborated on the paper with Mark Scheuerell, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington.(6) The Pacific Northwest learned too late that the biggest assist we can give wild salmon is to provide safe passage and habitat and to let them rebuild. We do not want to be fighting over the last wild salmon in Alaska because we failed to heed the lessons.
The concern over road construction impacts is just the beginning. What comes after – the development of multiple large scale mines – is of greater concern. Already mines are projected throughout the entire project area.(7) In addition, public use will be inevitable, despite assurances to the contrary, and this will further increase the stress on vulnerable resources. We can expect that a currently pristine wilderness will no longer exist. While the current SEIS (Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement) did not address the development of mines, it is the foreseeable and unforeseeable consequences of eventual mine development that drives most of the public concern. That is, after all, why they road is being proposed.
Anadromous fish species are generally not compatible with massive project or mining impacts affecting their waterways for passage and habitat. “Road construction and use can have a wide variety of immediate and long-term impacts on water quality and fish habitat.”(8)
In their 2022 paper, the authors of Risks of mining to salmonid-bearing watersheds (9) noted the following: “The body of knowledge presented here supports the notion that the risks and impacts of mining have been underestimated across the watersheds of northwestern North America. To facilitate future transparent discussions of risk and scientific uncertainty, we posed four questions related to watershed stressor complexity, cumulative effects, long-term risk mitigation, and climate change. Considering these existing uncertainties, the application of the precautionary principle would help to ensure the protection of salmonid-bearing watersheds and the benefits that they provide for diverse peoples.” (10)
What can we expect with road construction and mining activity that will impact fish? To name only a few:
- Disturbance or destruction of salmon habitat
- Disturbance or destruction of salmon passage adult in-bound and juvenile out-bound
- Increased exposed permafrost resulting in water contamination
- Water pollution from road contaminants
- Water pollution from chemicals used in mining process and any spills
- Affluences and effects on fish hydrology
- Increased human traffic in spawning and rearing habitat
- Blockage created by unmaintained or damaged culverts
If we build a road and mines are developed, we must be prepared for the inevitable; salmon and other anadromous species within the affected watersheds could disappear. I am not sure it is possible to mitigate against that likelihood.
Coming up in the next issue: Part II of this article will focus on culverts and stream crossing specifics.
- Gale K. Vick is a 57 year resident of Alaska with a long history of research and commentary on fisheries policy for various organizations.
- https://alaskawild.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/roadcostrptfinal26.pdf
- Alaska Wildlife Alliance, Ambler Road Draft EIS 2019 Fact Sheets, https://www.akwildlife.org/news/submit-comment-on-ambler
- https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/sf/SARR/AWC/
- https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=717
- Billions in conservation spending fail to improve wild fish stocks By Steve Lundeberg Guest Article Aug 11, 2023 https://theworldlink.com/news/local/billions-in-conservation-spending-fail-to-improve-wild-fish-%20stocks/article_4441fff2-3805-11ee-8eb7-671bf6be65da.html
- https://ak.audubon.org/news/amblers-rivers-streams
- Kane DL, Wellen PM (1985) A Hydraulic Evaluation of Fish Passage through Roadway Culverts in Alaska. Report No. FHWA-AK-RD-85-24 & 85-24A. University of Alaska and Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, Fairbanks, AK, in cooperation with US Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9bed/bdc714e992e69e2729e13244019f8157c1f6.pdf [Google Scholar]
- “Risks of mining to salmonid-bearing watersheds”. Christopher J. Sergeant et al., Science Advances, July 1, 2022 Vol. 8, Issue 26
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/pmc10883362/#:~:text=pathways%20of%20mining%20impacts%20on,3).