The Ambler Access Road will be a permanent, public road. There is no fiscal, historical or logical evidence to support the claim that the road will be a temporary route used only by authorized traffic.
Fiscally, none of the cost estimates put forward by AIDEA or Ambler Metals include the price tag for removal of the road. Either they don’t intend to remove it, or they intend to file for bankruptcy when the time comes, leaving the state with the bill. Neither outcome leads to the removal of the road.
Historically, the Dalton Highway, also built as a private industrial road, also supported by state funds, is now a permanent, public road. Rightly, the people of Alaska will not long tolerate funding a road that they cannot use and will not be paid back.
Logically, we don’t live in a world where 200-mile-long roads are removed. Taking it out would be expensive, environmentally harmful and silly.
Once the Ambler Road is built, it’s here to stay. It’s the first step in opening all of Western Alaska to future development. Someday, sooner than you think, Iditarod mushers will drive home from Nome in their trucks. Maybe this is the future we want, maybe it’s not. But the people of Alaska deserve an honest discussion of that reality before we’ve passed the point of no return.
— Daniel Skarzynski
Coldfoot
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