Fieldwork is expected to move forward this summer to survey a path for a roughly 200-mile road that would access a copper mine/NPS file

Though lawsuits are pending in a bid to halt a proposed copper mine's access road from cutting across parts of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and the Kobuk Wild and Scenic River in Alaska, the mining company plans to move forward this year with fieldwork, part of which would involve surveying work for the road.

Trilogy Metals, Inc., a main stakeholder of the road, believes the mine will bring high-paying jobs, training, and educational opportunities to a region suffering from high unemployment and lack of economic opportunity. The road is to be built from the Dalton Highway to reach a mine site near Ambler, a tiny village believed to sit near one of the world's richest copper deposits. 

Earlier this week the company announced that it had amassed nearly $31 million for this year's field work on the project. The company said the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) had approved the proposed plan and budget for the upcoming summer field season. The cost is to be split 50/50 by AIDEA and Ambler Metals LLC, the joint venture operating company equally owned by Trilogy and South32 Limited.

The $15.4 million Ambler Metals commited is on top of $28.5 million that was approved by Trilogy and South32 for the 2022 program at the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects. In the release announcing the funding, AIDEA said the project over its life is expected to "create thousands of new jobs resulting in over $5 billion in wages."

"It has been over 10 years since Trilogy formed its partnership with NANA Regional Corporation, Inc. This partnership has been a very productive and fulfilling experience for all sides," said Tony Giardini, Trilogy's president and CEO, in the release. "Since that time, Trilogy and now Ambler Metals, have been fully committed to our core values, which include respect for the environment, Iñupiaq and Athapaskan subsistence cultures and the safety and wellbeing of all our employees."

This year's field work is expected to focus on "geotechnical investigations, right-of-way surveys, environmental studies, road and bridge engineering design work, and cultural resources work," the company said.

"We are looking forward to a busy and productive 2022 field season," said Ramzi Fawaz, president and CEO of Ambler Metals. "Ambler Metals will be recruiting for over 60 direct hire positions, ranging from geologists to heavy equipment operators. Additionally, there will be approximately 50 positions hired through contractors working for us."

While the field work moves ahead, the lawsuits are plodding along. Just last month the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Interior Department, U.S Army Corps of Engineers at Department of Transportation sought an extension in the matter, noted the Trilogy release.

The area encompassing the mining district serves as habitat for salmon, whitefish and sheefish as well as a crucial migration corridor for Alaska's largest caribou herd, the Western Arctic. Approximately 20 miles of the proposed road would cross Park Service lands in the Kobuk River unit of Gates of the Arctic National Preserve. The remainder of the route traverses Bureau of Land Management, state, and Native Corporation lands.

The legal challenge was brought by the National Parks Conservation Association, the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, and Winter Wildlands Alliance. In their initial filing, the organizations said the land-management agencies that approved the road failed to do their due diligence in safeguarding the environment. They said the road "would cross roughly 2,900 streams and 11 major rivers, including the Kobuk — a designated Wild and Scenic River — and would permanently fill over 2,000 acres of wetland."

The lawsuit described a litany of issues, noting that the road's construction would require gravel pits to be mined every ten miles to provide roadbed, that "maintenance stations and camps" would be built along the way to support vehicles and crews, and that the path goes through permafrost as well as "areas with sulfide minerals that have the potential to cause acid rock drainage."

While the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act requires that right-of-way access be permitted across Park Service lands for this project, the plaintiffs allege that guidelines set down by ANILCA for such projects were not adhered to. The lawsuit also notes that under Section 206 of ANILCA, all Park Service lands in Alaska created by the act were withdrawn from "all forms of appropriation or disposal under the public land laws, including location, entry, and patent under the United States mining laws, disposition under the mineral leasing laws."