Dalton corridor suit is not over: groups appeal, and 700,000 acres remain in dispute

The State of Alaska is poised to gain hundreds of thousands of acres along the Dalton Highway that were promised to it at statehood — but ten conservation groups are fighting the transfer in court, and the dispute is now headed to appeal.

A federal judge in Alaska last month let much of the transfer move forward, denying the Northern Alaska Environmental Center and nine other groups an injunction to halt it and dismissing part of their suit. Judge Aaron Peterson ruled that the state's sovereign immunity shields lands already tentatively approved — about 1.4 million acres the Bureau of Land Management signed off on in May — but not the roughly 700,000 acres that have not reached that stage. Over those, the groups' case continues; they filed their appeal to the Ninth Circuit on Aug. 11.

The groups argue the lands cannot be conveyed to the state without further action by Congress. Peterson found that claim unlikely to succeed and saw no imminent harm, but the groups are pressing it on appeal.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy framed the transfer as a long-sought win, saying "Alaska has fought hard to secure access to the lands that were promised to us at Statehood." The land had been locked up since 1971, when the federal government withdrew a 5.3-million-acre corridor to reserve room for the trans-Alaska pipeline and the haul road that became the Dalton Highway; Interior lifted that reservation north of the Yukon River in February.

For Native and rural communities along the corridor, the transfer carries a specific concern. Tanana Chiefs Conference has warned that acres leaving federal ownership lose the rural subsistence priority guaranteed under federal law. About 3.8 million acres of Alaska's roughly 105-million-acre statehood entitlement remain unconveyed.