Ambler Road agreement calls for private access, subsistence safeguards and Native corporation contracts
Northern Journal obtained a copy of a recent agreement between Alaska Native corporations and the state agency pushing the contentious Ambler Road project.
A newly signed agreement that could advance the controversial Ambler Road calls for preferential contracting with Alaska Native corporations, along with assurances that the project will be a “private, controlled-access road” with security guards stationed at its entrance at all hours, year-round.
That’s according to a newly released copy of the document.
Though signed in December, the agreement had been closely held by Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration and other parties to it until state officials released a copy last week, in response to a Northern Journal request under the Alaska Public Records Act.
The agreement marks an apparent shift in the dynamics between Dunleavy's administration and two Indigenous-owned companies with land along the proposed 211-mile road in northern Alaska.
The project has long generated debate in the region. Supporters view it as an economic lifeline for a rural region with limited job options; opponents see it as a major threat to Arctic wildlife and traditional hunting and fishing grounds.
The Indigenous companies — Northwest Alaska's NANA Regional Corp. and Interior Alaska's Doyon Ltd. — had, in the past, criticized the Dunleavy administration's intense push to advance the project and discontinued permits that granted the state access to their lands.
The new agreement appears to indicate a step forward for the project, as both NANA and Doyon have signed on to it.
It outlines several provisions aimed at “maximizing the benefits” of the road for the region’s Indigenous-owned corporations and several small communities near the route.
It also outlines a plan to create a special entity to manage the project. It mentions the possibility of building spur roads to nearby villages. And it calls for establishing a subsistence committee made up of local tribal members and Native corporation shareholders.
The agreement is nonbinding, which means the parties are not legally obligated to uphold it. But it lays a foundation for a more definitive future deal, and it indicates that NANA and Doyon may now see a path forward for the project.
Those businesses previously had expressed concerns that the state agency promoting the road, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, had not been adequately considering their interests.
The companies now “agree to negotiate in good faith towards the entry into definitive agreements for the development of the Ambler Road,” the agreement says.
In a January letter to shareholders, a NANA executive said the agreement does not represent a formal change in the company’s position on the project.
