Urgent action is needed to prevent the Alaska Department of Natural Resources from approving exploration permits from Panther Minerals AK Inc for their proposed uranium project near the village of Elim. 

The proposed project area is home to fish, wildlife, and Elim’s village water supply. Drilling would disrupt the Tubutulik River and potentially create uranium contamination, with serious consequences for human and animal health. The Native Village of Elim recently passed a resolution opposing the project and has requested government-to-government consultation regarding the uranium exploration, claiming they were not properly consulted by the Bureau of Land Management.

Please stand with the residents of Elim and the greater region, who overwhelmingly oppose this project. Our friends at Alaska Community Action on Toxics have provided more information and a comment form to share your concerns. 

Permafrost near Nuiqsut. Photo by Keri Oberly

Back in April, the Biden administration passed a new rule clarifying protections for 13 million acres of the Western Arctic’s Special Areas, and set up a much needed framework to consider additional environmental safeguards.

We’re excited that the Bureau of Land Management is now taking another stride toward more rigorous protections for the Western Arctic. The first step is a 60-day comment period, called a Request for Information, to gauge public interest in expanding the Reserve’s Special Areas. 

Working in collaboration with Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic and the Inupiat group Grandmother’s Growing Goodness, Native Movement has drafted a comment letter for the public to sign in support of a new Nuiqsut Subsistence Use Special Area. 

This initial process can be the start of more inclusive stewardship of the region, and a path to protecting millions of acres of intact ecosystems. The Northern Center is continuing to work toward expanding essential protections for the Western Arctic, and we will have more information to share with you soon on how to make sure your voice is heard!

On July 1, the Village of Dot Lake (located around 45 miles northwest of Tok) filed a lawsuit against the United States Army Corps of Engineers on grounds that they failed to provide meaningful consultation on direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts of the Manh Choh Mine in accordance with the Corps’ duty to the Tribe to protect tribal lands, assets, and resources. Dot Lake requested that the Corps rescind their permits, and that other permitting decisions be stalled until a requisite hard look is taken at the impacts of the Mine on the Tribe and their resources through the completion of an Environmental Impact Statement.

The lawsuit lists negative effects of the Manh Choh Mine including the potential for acid generation and heavy metals to contaminate area watersheds via leaching and weathering of waste rock piles, fugitive dust, and the danger of adding discharge to water bodies with current water quality exceedances. The hauling of ore further contributes fugitive dust, and is noted as a source of sustained and intense noise. Additionally, it is a pervasive risk of significant accidents and spills, and continuous release of toxic tire chemicals. All sources of contamination could adversely impact migrating wildlife and birds, as well as fish species critical to subsistence by local residents.

Furthermore, the lawsuit asserts that the Corps should consider all impacts to surrounding communities, which includes the presence of a man camp in Tok that serves as temporary housing for a large influx of workers. As the first large-scale industrial man camp operated in Alaska in a community on the road system, there are serious unknown risks beyond what current studies uphold. Current studies acknowledge that Alaska has the highest rates for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and that the presence of man camps increase rates of violence and crime in small communities.  

The Northern Center supports Dot Lake Village in holding the Army Corps of Engineers accountable –– to their duty of meaningful government-to-government consultation, and prioritizing the health and wellbeing of tribes and their resources in determining the viability of a resource extraction project with far-reaching impacts on the surrounding environments and people.

In a recent interview with KNOM Radio Mission, Rep. Mary Peltola walked back her support for the proposed Ambler Road. This reversal comes after months of expressing her support for the project alongside Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, and claiming that there was significant regional and tribal support for Ambler Road.

Rep. Peltola now claims that there are new developments coming from the region stating, "I think that this project really has hit a pause button so that we can learn more about it. And there’s more time for the proponents to have outreach with the stakeholders.” She also cited resistance from local community members about having any type of road, public or private, developed in the region, and wanting to “listen closely to the people who live near these projects” as a reason for her reevaluation. 

You can listen to and read the full transcript of the interview here.

Our Adventure Borealis program is keeping busy and has a few upcoming Fairbanks-based outings. Check out the list below for trip descriptions and dates.

Two bull caribou of the Western Arctic Herd swim across the Kobuk River during fall migration in Kobuk Valley National Park. NPS photo by Kyle Joly

For the Anchorage Daily News opinion section, Clarence Putyuk Wood-Griepentrog writes about his reaction to the Ambler Road's Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that came out in April and his disappointment in Sen. Dan Sullivan's National Defense Authorization Act amendment. "Every moment out in the country has been a little more special," he writes. "Like, we fought for this land and we won. Every caribou that crossed the Kobuk River, every specklebelly making its way home to us, every clean ice pan headed downriver, are all protected from the Ambler Road...But sadly, my very own senator, Sen. Dan Sullivan, has something else in mind for me and my village..."