A Road that Could Save a Village:
Bridging a Gap to Greater Access to Opportunities, Resources in Noatak
Senator Dan Sullivan, Alaska
Noatak, Alaska, a village 70 miles north of the Arctic Circle, nestles in the Noatak River valley between the Cape Krusenstern National Monument along the coast to the west and the Noatak National Preserve to the east. Iñupiat hunters first camped here at least 5,000 years ago, lured to the area by abundant game and fish. About 500 people, most of them descendants of the original settlers, still call this place home, and they want to live out their lives here.
Survival in modern times, however, is complicated. The high cost of fuel and goods today threatens the community’s existence.
On a recent day in early August, dozens of villagers walked or rode their four-wheelers to the airport to greet a small plane that carried visiting Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, along with state and Northwest Arctic Borough officials. Here, as in most of rural Alaska, the airplane is basically the only way in or out. Sullivan and the rest had come to talk about that. Villagers guided them to the community center where food — salmon and muktuk — was served and local concerns were voiced.
As with most of the more than 230 villages that dot a state twice the size of Texas, just getting here is a challenge. Once you get to Anchorage, what many Americans already consider a far off place, it’s another 500 miles — the distance from Washington, D.C. to Toledo, Ohio — northwest by jet to Kotzebue, a regional hub. There, one transfers to a small bush plane for another 50 or so miles north to Noatak. The plane passes over nothing but wilderness. There are no roads or farms. The land is pocked only with small lakes. The foothills of the mighty and rugged Brooks Range rise in the distance. The village appears as an outpost in a vast northern landscape without end.
Residents of Noatak say they are always happy to see officials arrive from outside. They need help, they say. Technology has in some ways made life easier in rural Alaska, but life is still threatened in Noatak. Wild game and fish fill many freezers, but fuel to power the machinery used to obtain that protein — not to mention to provide the electricity to keep the freezers running — must be flown in at enormous cost. And it is the same for everything else — building materials, medicine, food staples other than meat and fish, clothing — the list is almost endless.
Shipping costs here make for mind-numbing prices for goods. A gallon of heating fuel, a necessity to heat the many Arctic wind-tattered homes in a land where temperatures can drop to 60 degrees below zero, costs about $10. A sheet of plywood goes for about $100. A gallon of milk goes for about $12. About 22 percent of the villagers are below the poverty line and many are struggling just to stay warm and put food on the table.
“In the big picture of our country, the survival of a remote village of approximately 550 people may seem a small issue, but to the people of Noatak and the survival of the culture, it is without parallel,” said Mark Moore, the transportation director for the village.
The village is desperate for cheaper goods, he said.
“In the winter, there are many in the village who often have to decide whether to heat their homes or feed their families,” a villager elder said. “I don’t know how we can keep our young people here.”
But Noatak has hope. If they could get permission to build 22 miles of road north to join an existing road that leads to a small port on the Chukchi Sea, they could radically reduce the costs of the village’s fuel, food and goods. The existing road is used by a zinc mine, 50 miles north of the village, which would be willing to provide access along with the potential for greater economic development. Some of the ideas included building a greenhouse to provide the mine’s workers produce, or a welding business to service the mine. It would also provide easier access for residents of Noatak to work at the mine.
The mine, called Red Dog Mine, is the biggest economic driver in the region. It’s one of the world’s largest zinc mines, developed in the 1980s under an agreement with NANA, an Alaska Native Corporation based in Kotzebue, and Teck, out of Canada.
The mine provides jobs for more than 700 people in the region at an average wage of $99,000 a year, and much-needed tax revenue to the borough.
If Noatak can get a spur to the main road, the mine has committed to sell the village fuel at cost — roughly $2 a gallon. The mine would get something out of the deal, too. It would be able use the airport in Noatak for medical or other emergencies.
It’s a win-win. But like many infrastructure projects in Alaska, where the federal government controls more than 60 percent of the land all across the state, this one is complicated. Roughly five miles of the road would go through Park Service land — land that could be swapped for an equivalent piece of Native Corporation land — if the Park Service were willing to cooperate. Historically, it and other federal agencies haven’t been keen on cooperating with land swaps in Alaska, nor with any sort of infrastructure project, even though Alaska is woefully infrastructure poor.
In fact, the federal government, often with the help of environmental groups, has worked to stop nearly every road and/or infrastructure project in the state since the 1980s. Land access has been Alaska’s, as well as much of the West’s, issue for decades. But the fight has been particularly heated under the current administration. It appears to want nothing more than to lock up more and more Alaska lands and turn the state into one national park.
Senator Sullivan is the former Attorney General of Alaska as well as the state’s former Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources. In those jobs, he saw first-hand how the federal government impedes development in Alaska and the Arctic. Oftentimes, federal agencies deny access to lands outright. And on the rare occasions when they do allow access, they make builders invest years fighting through an impossible thicket of regulatory red-tape.
“In my experience, literally every project in the state — ports, mines, roads, harbors, gas wells — is either killed outright, or slowed by the federal government for years and years until, often times, the project dies,” Sullivan said.
Senator Sullivan is very focused on infrastructure development to spur economic growth both in Alaska and across the country. He’s also championing reforming permitting and job-killing regulations. He told the Noatak community that he is going to do his best to ensure that the federal government doesn’t put up roadblocks that would kill the road.
“I’ve heard your concerns. You have a beautiful village, and I think you have an excellent solution to your problems,” Senator Sullivan said. “The federal government has the responsibility to help lift our citizens up. It shouldn’t stand in the way of economic opportunity. We need to get more federal officials to come to Noatak, to see for themselves how important it is that you be allowed to live in your ancestral home, without having to worry about whether you can pay for food or fuel. I’ll do all I can to help.”
