Ten environmental entities filed litigation in federal district court in Anchorage on March 10 alleging that the Interior Department has unlawfully removed federal protections over public lands in a broad area of Alaska.
These lands had been protected for more than 50 years and were subject to federal oversight intended to ensure Arctic health and a state corridor for the Dalton Highway and Trans-Alaska Pipeline, plaintiffs said.
The lawsuit asserts that agencies violated the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to meet legal obligations to protect land, wildlife waterways, subsistence use, and communities.
Removing these protections put in place in the early 1970s via public land orders makes way for a takeover of these lands by the state of Alaska and opens them for mining claims and other activities, according to plaintiffs. Transferring these lands to the state of Alaska would lower the bar for protecting subsistence and mitigating impacts when permitting extractive projects, they added.
“Removing protections panders to the mining industry and disregards the public’s interest in sound decision-making, community health, public land use, and transparency about how decisions get made,” said Bridget Psarianos, senior staff attorney with Trustees for Alaska. “This administration continues its agenda of giving public lands to private interests through any means possible, no matter what laws get broken and what communities get hurt.”
The 10 clients represented by Trustees for Alaska in this case include Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Alaska Wildlife Alliance, Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, National Parks Conservation Association, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and Winter Wildlands Alliance.
