OPINION: Maybe there’s a way to de-politicize the Ambler Road

I’m surprised at the furor that building a road can kick up, particularly one to a mine. Take the Ambler Access Project, for example.

This is a proposed 211-mile industrial access road (that is, a gravel road) built west from the Dalton Highway, the north-south state road that connects North Slope oil fields to Alaska’s highway system in the Interior.

If it is built, the road would extend into the western Brooks Range, where mining companies are exploring copper discoveries in the Ambler Mining District.

There are strong opinions on this. However, let’s understand that we have no idea whether the mines being explored will be economic. The most promising, the Arctic deposit, has high grades of copper, but people in the industry I listen to feel a lot more ore has to be found.

Another question is whether trucking the ore several hundred miles on a new Ambler road, then on the Dalton Highway to Fairbanks and shipping it on the Alaska Railroad to Anchorage, and then by sea to customers, will pencil out. There’s a lot of handling here.

It also may take several mines, not just Arctic, to produce enough ore for a reasonable tariff to pay for the road. More copper deposits are known and being explored, but developing mines take a long time. It took decades, for example, for the Kensington gold mine near Juneau to be explored and brought to production.

There are people who worry that the decision to build this road will be political. On that point, rest assured. The money for construction will be borrowed, meaning bonds will be sold. Lenders on Wall Street, a cold-eyed bunch, make the ultimate decision, not politicians.

My point is we should wait before we invest a lot of energy, pro or con, and use this time to discuss some real issues. However, if one is cynical and with a desire to kill this project early, stirring the political pot makes sense.

But I look at the upside.

On real issues, start with the reticence in small villages in the region to the road and the opening of this country to, well, strangers. There is rightful concern over pressure on local wildlife by sports hunters and fishers driving into the region on the road.

If there’s no road, there’s no problem — but if a road is built, there are ways things can be controlled. Access can be limited on an industrial road, for example, where it can’t be on a conventional public highway. Also, the state Department of Fish and Game has regulatory tools to limit pressure on local resources.

Years ago, villagers on the North Slope opposed the opening of the North Slope “haul” road built for the Trans Alaska Pipeline System because they feared the region would be overrun with sports hunters. It didn’t happen, although the Dalton has long been a public highway.

The Ambler road will be different because it will be privately funded by lenders. A state entity, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, will own the road, but the legal framework is different than with a state highway built with public money. AIDEA can legally limit public access in ways the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities can’t do.

A cautionary note: We’ll need to make sure AIDEA uses its authority to control public access. The road is a quasi-private project, but the authority’s board is still appointed by the governor, so there’s still a political element.

If this project goes forward, there should be a pledge to local people by the governor and the Legislature. Some form of binding covenant may be needed. I have another idea that I’ll get to.

One other caution: We’ve never had a major environrmental problem, like a tailings spill, from a modern Alaska mine. Let’s make sure it never happens, though, by ensuring state regulatory agencies have budgets to do compliance inspections. This is really important in tight budget times.

There’s also an upside to this road, however, assuming it has controlled access: Fuel and groceries can be trucked rather than flown in, sharply lowering costs. This is important because the biggest threat to rural Alaska is the viability of its small communities due to the high cost of shipping energy and materials.

There are also jobs that mines will bring, and these will pay well. The Red Dog Mine, farther to the west in this region, is a major employer of local people, for example.

There’s actually a long history of jobs in rural Alaska, including the area in question, created by mining. People often have short memories.

These are questions people have to balance: On one hand is preservation of a reassuring, known way of life, but with the threat of high costs and limited jobs. On the other hand there are opportunities for a better local economy and, frankly, a reason for young people to stick around.

Subsistence, wildlife protection and mining aren’t mutually exclusive, as the Red Dog Mine also shows.

At Red Dog, local subsistence committees of local people have authority to shut down road traffic, if needed, to protect animals. Something like that is now being discussed for the Ambler road.

Here’s an idea on how to solve this problem: Let local people own the road. The Ambler road would be a toll road, like the road at Red Dog. That road is now very profitable for AIDEA, which also owns it, because bonds sold to build it have been paid off.

If this road and the mines actually happen, why not have AIDEA build the road and then sell it to the locals after the financing is paid off? A new, locally controlled transportation entity could be formed.

Something like this would give local people control, as owners, and create a stream of income to provide local services, even schools. This, again, has happened at Red Dog, where mining brings revenue to support local schools and services. The same thing could happen along an Ambler road.

Tim Bradner is publisher of the Alaska Legislative Digest and Alaska Economic Report.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.