Ten conservation groups have filed a federal lawsuit challenging a Trump administration decision that removed long-standing protections from about 2.1 million acres of federal land in Alaska, a move that could allow new mining, energy and infrastructure projects.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage and targets a decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior to revoke public land orders that had protected portions of land along the corridor surrounding the Trans-Alaska Pipeline since the 1970s.
Those protections covered an area stretching along the pipeline route and parts of the Dalton Highway. The administration’s decision allows the state of Alaska to select the land and potentially authorize development projects there.
Possible development in the area could include major infrastructure proposals such as the Ambler Access Project, a planned industrial road intended to connect the Dalton Highway to the mineral-rich Ambler mining district in northwest Alaska.
The corridor where protections were removed lies between two major protected areas: Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Environmental groups say the area provides habitat for fish, migratory birds, moose, caribou and other wildlife important to subsistence hunting and fishing.
The lawsuit claims the federal government failed to follow several laws when removing the protections, including the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
The case will proceed in federal court in Anchorage, where a judge will consider whether the Interior Department’s decision to revoke the land protections violated federal environmental and public-lands laws.
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