Alaska’s Ambler Road Decision Coming in Late 2023, Interior Says

The Biden administration will decide at the end of 2023 whether to allow the state of Alaska to build a 211-mile road to provide access to copper and critical minerals in Alaska’s Ambler Mining District, according to a legal status update filed Tuesday.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management will publish a draft supplemental environmental impact statement for the Ambler Industrial Access Project by the second quarter of 2023 followed by a final statement and decision by the end of the year.

• The schedule is “preliminary,” and subject to “realignment of agency priorities,” the bureau said in the filing. The bureau—which originally approved the project during the Trump administration but later rescinded that approval—didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
• The status update was filed in Northern Alaska Environmental Center v. Haaland, a lawsuit filed against the project in 2020 by environmental groups in US District Court for the District of Alaska. The project would allow Ambler Metals LLC to tap copper, zinc, cobalt and other minerals in Alaska’s southern Brooks Range. The land targeted for mining is private but surrounded by national parks and wilderness areas in a region without any roads.
• Tribes and environmental groups worry the road will harm salmon runs, caribou migration corridors and other wildlife that Alaska Natives depend on for food. The state wants to build the road to boost the economy, provide jobs and create a domestic source of copper and critical minerals which are now sourced mostly overseas.