Alaska Sues Interior Over Land Withheld Near Wildlife Refuge

The U.S. Department of the Interior violated the law when it withheld about 20,000 acres of land near the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from Alaska, according to a lawsuit the state filed in federal court.

Interior originally set aside about 8.9 million acres for the wildlife refuge, and it defined the northwest boundary as “the extreme west bank of the Canning River.” The Interior Board of Land Appeals later found the “extreme west bank” to be the “Staines River.”

The decision expanded the size of the refuge and decreased the amount of land “that should have been conveyed to the ...