DNR approves 800-cubic-yard gravel contract on Dalton Highway

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources will issue a material sale contract to North Star Construction for 800 cubic yards of gravel at Dalton Highway milepost 154 on the east side of the highway. The site sits within the Dalton Utility Corridor — the same band of land along the highway and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline that was the subject of a major federal-to-state conveyance one month earlier.

The contract, numbered ADL 422876, authorizes extraction from master material site ADL 422623. The volume exceeds the 200-cubic-yard threshold for a limited permit under DNR's material sales framework, so it requires a formal contract under state law.

The contract is being processed under state authority in the same geographic area where the Bureau of Land Management issued a Tentative Approval on May 5, 2026, transferring approximately 1.4 million acres in the Dalton Utility Corridor to the state under the Alaska Statehood Act. That conveyance covered corridor lands north of the Yukon River — the geographic band in which milepost 154 sits — and was framed by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the state as opening the corridor to expanded resource development. Public records reviewed for this article do not establish whether the specific parcel containing ADL 422623 was conveyed under the May 5 Tentative Approval or was already state-patented before that date. DNR's Northern Regional Office, which administers material sales in the corridor, is the office that would have that legal description on file.

The Dalton Highway corridor supports North Slope oilfield logistics. Remote highway segments in Arctic Alaska rely on locally sourced gravel from nearby material sites to maintain road surfaces and build elevated pads that protect permafrost and keep the road open year-round.

DNR's material sales framework requires applicants to submit an environmental risk questionnaire, reclamation plan, application fee, and bonding before a contract is issued. The notice does not say whether additional permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Habitat Division, or the Department of Environmental Conservation are required for wetlands or water bodies at the site.

The notice was posted by DNR's Northern Regional Office in the state's Online Public Notices system under AS 38.05.555.